by TIP News

TIP and ONF announce liaison agreement

Nov 13, 2019

Telecom Infra Project (TIP) and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) announce a liaison agreement to accelerate the rollout of open networks.

Around the world, service providers of all sizes are facing the constant need to increase efficiencies while rolling out new network capabilities. This requires the industry to look for new ways to collaborate and deliver hardened solutions. In all cases, the economics need to continue to improve to overcome existing and increasing barriers to robust connectivity.

Both TIP and ONF are committed to developing deployable, disaggregated networks that will drive innovation and choice across the telecommunications industry. Jointly, TIP and ONF represent over 500 organizations across the globe.

Areas of collaboration

This liaison agreement extends the existing successful collaboration between TIP’s Open Optical and Packet Transport (OOPT) project group and ONF’s Open Disaggregated Transport Network (ODTN) to now include new initiatives in mobile and fixed broadband networks.

Mobile network initiatives

TIP’s OpenRAN 5GNR Project Group will explore the integration of hardware platforms developed according to TIP specifications with ONF open source software stacks in a number of possible configurations, including:

- - Integration with an enhanced version of ONF’s Open Evolved Mobile Core (OMEC) platform, an approach that supports the Non-Standalone (NSA) deployment plans of many operators globally. This will enable rapid introduction of disaggregated programmable 5G Radio Access Networks (RAN) while also leveraging existing 4G network infrastructure.
  - Integration with ONF’s ONOS-based O-RAN compliant RIC controller for 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) architectures to allow for programmatic, policy-driven control of the RAN.
  - Integration with ONF’s planned RAN-DU and RAN-CU software stacks based on the O-RAN architecture. ONF has described plans to develop such stacks based on O-RAN specifications, leveraging O-RAN Software Community components.

This collaboration will further explore the integration with ONF’s Converged Multi-Access and Core (COMAC) platform. It will introduce 5G as a component of a converged wired/wireless platform, enabling a new range of converged networks and services.

5GNR OMEC 2019_10_15.png
Figure 1: ONF Architecture with OpenRAN 5G NR

“Sprint is a proponent of the power of community to accelerate network transformation and is already an active participant in the work of both TIP and ONF,” said Dr. Durga Satapathy, Director of Technology Innovation & Architecture at Sprint and co-chair of TIP OpenRAN 5GNR Project Group. “Sprint is delighted to see TIP and ONF collaborating to accelerate open and disaggregated 5G network solutions.”

Fixed broadband initiatives

ONF has developed the SDN-Enabled Broadband Access (SEBA) Reference Design to cover a broad set of wireline and fixed wireless access technologies and related Service Edge capabilities. The TIP community has expertise in the development of mmWave wireless mesh networks and associated provisioning mechanisms and routing protocols. The scope for the initial collaboration will be the integration of mmWave mesh networks with the ONF SEBA architecture as part of a solution addressing multiple access technologies.
$TIP ONF collaboration mmWave 2019_10_28.png$ Figure 2: ONF SEBA Architecture with Fixed Wireless Access

“Deutsche Telekom believes in the essential role of open standards, hardware and software disaggregation and fast prototyping in the quick and cost effective deployment of new equipment and services,” said Dr. Andreas Gladisch, Vice President, Emerging Technologies, Technology Innovation, Deutsche Telekom and co-chair of the TIP mmWave Networks Project Group. “We welcome this initiative between TIP and ONF to explore hybrid access networks using PON, mmWave and other wired and wireless technologies under an SDN architecture.”

TIP Summit

ONF will be in participating in the TIP Summit, which takes place at RAI, Amsterdam, Netherlands from November 13 to 14.