USAID’s Better Access and Connectivity (BEACON) project has soft-launched the first Open RAN laboratory in the Philippines, in collaboration with international and local telco industry stakeholders, and is targeting a full launch in May this year.
The US$8 million lab – which is being funded by BEACON in collaboration with the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman Electronics and Electrical Engineering Institute (EEEI) and Asia Open RAN Academy (AORA) – has been established at the UP campus in Quezon City to serve as a "center of collaboration on training and research, workforce development, and performance testing" of Open RAN in the Philippines.
The lab is being built by Viavi Solutions using its Automated Lab-as-a-Service for Open RAN (VALOR), which Viavi says provides an innovative, highly automated hybrid testing laboratory-as-a-service (LaaS) for Open RAN testing and evaluation. UP EEEI will provide training initiatives and operations at the lab.
The Open RAN lab is also supported by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), as well as PLDT, its wireless unit Smart Communications and Globe Telecom.
In a statement issued Friday, Smart’s head of network build and implemetation, Debbie Hu, said the lab's systems will be made available for PLDT and Smart to support the companies' technical capability development, testing, research, and collaborative studies essential in paving the way for future innovations.
Open RAN is still very much in the testing phase in the Philippines, although all telcos are exploring the technology in the hopes of saving costs and making their networks more intelligent, efficient and flexible.
Smart has been conducting various Open RAN proof of concepts (PoCs) in multiple stages since 2023. Globe Telecom has been collaborating with AORA to test Open RAN as part of its infrastructure modernization strategy. At last year’s Mobile World Congress, NOW Telecom signed an MoU with Rakuten Symphony to establish a collaborative framework for deploying a 5G Open RAN pilot in the Philippines.
The Open RAN lab is a flagship initiative that was established between the United States and the Philippines during Philippine president Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr’s visit to the White House in May 2023.
