Ericsson opened a new collaboration lab targeted at advancing virtualized 5G radio access network (RAN) technologies beyond its own work in that space.

The Ericsson Open Lab is located alongside the vendor’s existing research and development site in Ottawa, Canada. Customers and partners can access the lab virtually via Ericsson’s locations around the world. The site will have access to 100 megahertz of mid-band spectrum for indoor testing and 60 megahertz of mid-band spectrum that can be used in mixed environments.

The lab is designed to help service providers work through 5G deployment and use case scenarios, with a specific focus on open RAN, virtualization, management, and orchestration of those deployments. Ericsson added that work can include cloud-native infrastructure technology, RAN software technology, commercial white-box servers, and acceleration hardware from other vendors.

Carrier partners already signed up to participate include KDDI, Ooredoo, Orange, SoftBank, and Turkcell. Vendors attached to the site include Intel, Nvidia, Red Hat, and Wind River.

The Open Lab builds on Ericsson’s recent open RAN focus. The vendor late last year revealed its Cloud RAN software that will hit the market in late 2021. CEO Börje Ekholm recently reinforced Ericsson’s open RAN efforts.

“We will continue to strengthen our position in open RAN, however, 5G is happening now and our focus must be on providing the wider ecosystem of developers and enterprises fast access to 5G so they can benefit from its full potential,” Ekholm wrote in Ericsson’s latest annual report.

Projections for open RAN are scattered all over the map, and analysts are using different requirements or levers to determine what counts and what doesn’t count as open RAN. Dell’Oro Group said open RAN will surpass $5 billion in cumulative revenue through 2025, and ABI Research recently predicted that total capex on open RAN radios for public outdoor networks will reach $40.7 billion in 2026.

Ericsson typically sits alongside rivals Nokia and Huawei as the telecom market’s largest RAN and equipment vendors. All three have been fleshing out their respective open RAN plans at varying rates.

Nokia is viewed as the most progressive, having earlier this month boldly touted its progress and focus on open RAN being the “future way of doing radio business.”

“We see open RAN as an angle to take share,” particularly as more network operators require RAN suppliers to provide open RAN compliant equipment, Tommi Uitto, president of Nokia’s Mobile Networks unit, said during a recent presentation for analysts and investors. “If suppliers are not open RAN compliant, they risk losing share,” he said, adding that some operators will eventually need to adjust their supplier base. “Open RAN is a good mechanism for them to change that supplier base and increase supplier diversity.”

Open RAN and vRAN are “big areas of focus for Nokia strategically,” but it’s still at a relatively early stage, and the company has more work to drive and develop the related ecosystems, Ed Gubbins, principal analyst at GlobalData, told SDxCentral.

“Nokia is definitely being proactive on the open RAN front, and that sets it apart from most of its top competitors,” he said. Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE haven’t voiced plans to support open RAN or vRAN and “Ericsson hasn’t pushed as hard as Nokia has in this area, so Nokia can distinguish itself there,” Gubbins explained.