The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is reorganizing a pair of groups focusing on open radio access networks (RAN) into a more comprehensive effort simply titled “OpenRAN Project Group.”

Vodafone and T-Mobile US are chairing the effort with contributions from Airtel, BT, China Unicom, Intel, Ooredoo, Smartfren, TPG, and Vodafone Idea. T-Mobile US’ involvement is significant considering its president of technology, Neville Ray, isn’t fully convinced of the open RAN framework, at least not yet. 

Indeed, T-Mobile US to date is one of the least vocal proponents of open RAN. “We’re supportive” and “we continue to evaluate” the open RAN space but “it’s going to take some time,” Ray said last month at an industry event. Big questions remain about how operators and vendors will integrate all of the necessary hardware and software components, he said. “It’s not a major drive for us right now.”

TIP’s efforts are more broad, including recent efforts to disaggregate open routers, develop an open optical transponder, and combine router and microwave backhaul technology into a single white box among many other layers of network architecture. The overarching initiative was first launched by Facebook in early 2016.

“TIP is about the process of changing the system — systemic change. I think this has brought us a very long way to date in an extraordinarily short space of time,” Attilio Zani, executive director at TIP, told SDxCentral in a phone interview. The industry at large has shown, time and again, that “it’s inclined to reduce choice and reduce the breadth of innovation coming from smaller, medium-sized companies,” and TIP wants to change that, he explained. 

TIP wants to expand the supply chain, foster a deeper pool of innovation, and prove that software developers, security, radio, and other network equipment vendors “can be utilized to good effect and good innovative outcomes for the operator community at large,” he said. 

The recently broadened open RAN project includes several subgroups to develop against mobile network operator priorities and market demand, according to TIP. These subgroups create a framework for operators to indicate specific requirements and push for those results out of TIP. 

“We’re seeing quite an acceleration in the commercial deployment of TIP-incubated technology, especially in the area of open optical and packet transport, and open RAN,” Zani said. “We’re driving the industry to a disaggregation of all components, including the core.”

While 5G is undoubtedly all the rage in the wireless industry today, TIP is also working to further develop open RAN for networks dating back to 2G technology. Operators have launched trials and commercial deployments of open RAN in Turkey, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mozambique, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Russia, Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other countries, according to TIP.

TIP’s OpenRAN Project Group has refined its objectives around disaggregating various components of the RAN, the development of common requirements and vendor roadmaps, lower integration risk and cost, and fueling automation in the RAN with external applications at the network edge.

“What we think that does is provide even greater acceleration towards deployable, scalable solutions,” Zani said. “I think the inevitability of open RAN and open network solutions is going to eventually attract those that aren’t necessarily [TIP] members today,” he added, pointing to members of the O-RAN Alliance as one of those targets. 

Dave Hutton, chief engineer at TIP, was quick to note that TIP doesn’t want to duplicate work underway with other organizations, including the O-RAN Alliance and the Open Networking Foundation’s recently launched SD-RAN project. “We want to pull together those individual pieces of the jigsaw that those organizations are working in and help to piece together the overall picture of what the product looks like,” he said.

TIP highlighted other commercial deployments of technology incubated in its groups since earlier this year, including Open Optical and Packet Transport and Disaggregated Cell Site Gateways. The TIP community is also working with four of Europe’s largest network operators on a recently launched effort to disaggregate and improve broadband network gateways with open software and automation. 

Finally, TIP said it recently launched a quartet of groups aiming to define network configurations for network as a service, mobile data offload, connected city infrastructure, and open automation.