Funding awarded to 19 projects through the Open Networks Ecosystem (ONE) competition – designed to demonstrate the feasibility and reliability of O-RAN
The UK Government has announced the 19 successful projects in its Open Networks Ecosystem (ONE) Competition that will receive an £88m R&D investment, which includes funding for demonstrations of Open RAN technologies in high-demand density environments.
The trials, which will run until March 2025, are designed to increase the resilience of the UK mobile network as the government doesn’t want the industry to be overly reliant on any single form of technology.
The projects will initiate trials of open 5G networks in: major urban centres in Glasgow, Cambridge, Liverpool, Bath, and the City of London; sports and entertainment venues including Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, the National eSport Arena, Cambridge Corn Exchange and Shelsley Walsh motorsport venue; and the seaside resorts of Blackpool and Worthing.
The projects in detail
Virgin Media O2, Mavenir, VMWare and University of Surrey received £1.5m for 5G MoDE (Mobile oRAN for highly Dense Environments), which focuses on managing dense mobile network traffic using ORAN. Focus areas include a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) Intelligence, power-saving and capacity optimisation, centralised cloud units, zero-footprint implementation, and Massive MIMO AAUs.
BT, Space Forge and Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult received £1.2m for its 5G SwaP-C project which will develop high-frequency and energy-efficient ultra-wide band gap power amplifiers for massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems.
“There is clear demand for high-performance energy-efficient 5G/6G components. The project will fabricate and characterise new technical RF front ends to show the operational benefits for network operators,” said BT senior manager – network physics Fraser Burton.
Telecom Infra Project (TIP), BT, Accenture, Amdocs, Arqit, HCL Technologies, Net Reply UK, Viavi Solutions UK, VMWare and Adtran received £6m for its Accelerating RAN Intelligence Across Network Ecosystems (ARIANE) project which aims to test – under carrier grade conditions, the impact on an Open RAN network of multiple apps running individually and concurrently in a multi-RIC environment.
“Over 18 months, the team hopes to develop out & harden a set of prioritised xAPPs / rAPPs under carrier grade conditions, as well as offer practical insights into further standards development in conflict management, security-by-design and interface specification,” said TIP global head of engagement Vishal Mathur.
Dense Air, West Sussex County Council, Radisys UK, University of Glasgow, Sitenna and VMware received £9m to implement an energy-efficient shared mobile network in Worthing that adapts to rapid changes in user demand. Project BEACH is working with two UK-based mobile network operators to ensure the shared wireless infrastructure is aligned with the Joint Operator Technical Specification Framework.
Cambridgeshire County Council, AWTG, Benetel, Ontix, Wolfram, University of Surrey and University of Cambridge received £6.5m to build a network that will serve as a dynamic testing ground to develop and trial enhanced interoperability of hardware and software in dense urban areas with the ambition of demonstrating how the costs of implementation can be reduced and simplified.
Dorset Council, ARM, Vodafone, Illuminate, Keysight, Kimcell, Neutral Networks, Strathclyde University, Telint and Wildanet received £3.6m to further define the blueprint for rural connectivity using ORAN.
Ultracell Networks and King’s College London received £2.3m to improve the energy efficiency of the networks that interconnect disaggregated servers in data centres (that is, bespoke racks of only CPUs, or memory or network interface cards) by introducing a new Hybrid Cellular-Switched Topology. Doing this will also improve the resource utilisation of servers through disaggregation.
AMRC (University of Sheffield), Dassault Systemes, aql, Productive machines and Safenetics received £2.7m for its Factory of the Future project that will develop, test, and showcase flexible Open RAN deployment approaches for the manufacturing sector.
University of Surrey, AWTG, Keysight technologies UK, Lime Microsystems, Viavi Solutions UK, Virgin Media O2 and BT received £7.9m for its HiPer-RAN project which aims to develop an open platform able to host diverse, software-based intelligence that accounts for the whole RAN architecture.
This includes development of a highly efficient, secure, and scalable Open RAN Intelligent control (RIC) framework and development of a flexible, RIC-aware, physical layer framework that accounts for design parameters and processing challenges of Open-RAN systems.
University of Liverpool, Telet Research (N.I), Qualcomm Technologies International Ltd, Radisys, Attocore, ITS Technology Group, Tractum, CGA Simulation, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and Liverpool John Moores University received £9m to focus on delivering competitive solutions with mmWave technology and simulation, providing workable models for the adoption of Open RAN in the UK and overseas markets.
NEC Europe and Freshwave Services received £3.3m for a project that will provide a small cell solution in the high traffic area in the City of London and support the multi-operator neutral host network to ease the deployment of Open RAN. This network would be able to be connected to all mobile networks operator’s core networks if they wish to join.
“Our solution will be based on NHOD (Neutral Host Outdoor) specifications and will enable Mobile Network Operators (MNO’s), to offer new wireless services, and to improve coverage and capacity, without having to deploy and manage separate infrastructure,” said NEC UK GM head of sales Gary Collins.
Virgin Media O2, Mavenir, Intel and Qualcomm received £1.1m to design and deploy a Mobile ‘Cell on Wheels’ (CoW) equipped with Open RAN (Radio Access Network) technology, offering reliable connectivity in crowded venues.
Cisco, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow City Council, AMD, University of Glasgow, BBC, Neutral Wireless and Scottish Wireless received £1.9m for a project that will address key challenges associated with deploying private 5G Standalone (SA) networks operating in Shared Access radio spectrum, such as obtaining suitable spectrum licences and affordability of kit. It will test, demonstrate and evaluate these activities through a city-wide n77 design and innovation environment established in Glasgow and comprising up to 8 test sites.
A consortium of local councils and companies including Telet Research, Neutral Host Networks CIC, IQ Mobile, Radisys, cellXica, Virtuser Business Comms and Antevia received £9.9m to deliver a 5G Standalone RAN in four high density demand scenarios in the City of Bath, around Cardiff’s Principality stadium, a set of popup event sites in Worcestershire and Shrewsbury’s Quarry Park.
Microsoft’s Metaswitch Networks, The University of Edinburgh and Capgemini received £2.3m for its PerceptRAN project that will examine ways to enhance the interoperability of Apps across RAN Intelligent Controller solutions and ease access to large-scale Open RAN data to drive intelligent RAN operations.
Parallel Wireless, Kandou Bus and BT received £5.4m for a project to design a tightly integrated O-RU solution with an emphasis on flexibility to target different frequency bands and form factors, greater power efficiency, and with the goal to manufacture the product in the UK at a competitive cost.
The University of York, Cybermoor 5G Services, Quickline Communications, Viavi Solutions, Virgin Media O2, SafeNetics and Blackpool Council received £3.1m to deliver three distinct Open RAN high density demand (HDD) trials that will demonstrate the technology using realistic data. It will trial small cell HDD solutions to mobile users along Blackpool promenade and Winter Gardens.
It will also evaluate and trial massive MIMO by conducting trials in North Yorkshire or Lincolnshire for multi-tower Gigabit MIMO fixed wireless access architectures, using technology from Quickline Communications.
Boldyn Networks said it will support two projects. Working with AWTG, Three, University of Surrey, PI Works, Scotland 5G Centre, University of Glasgow and Accenture, the £9.1m the Small Cells ORAN in Dense Areas project (SCONDA) project – in partnership with Glasgow City Council – Boldyn will tackle mobile reception challenges in the high-demand areas of the city.
“Three with its current multivendor RAN network, regards this project as a show case of collaboration between multiple partners to help maturing open RAN deployment in complex dense environments, while enabling and leveraging automation to ensure open RAN coexistence with the traditional RAN,” said Three senior RAN strategy & architecture manager transport Soufiane Ayed.
Boldyn’s £5.7m Sunderland Open Network Ecosystem (SONET) project – in partnership with Sunderland City Council – will be supporting new applications for fans of live or Esports in major locations around the city, including at Sunderland AFC’s football ground, and the National Esports Performance Campus.
The ONE competition is part of the government’s £250m 5G Telecoms Supply Chain Diversification Strategy, fostering telecoms R&D projects including Future RAN Competition (FRANC), Future Open Networks Research Challenge, plus entities like SmartRAN Open Network Interoperability Centre (SONIC Labs), UK Telecoms Innovation Network and UK Telecoms Lab.