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The universities of York, Bristol and Surrey share £28 million in O-RAN development funding

13. 12. 2022 Tuesday / By: Robert Denes / Industrial / Exact time: BST / Print this page

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The universities of York, Bristol and Surrey will share £28 million from the government to work with Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung to develop future O-RAN network technologies.

Universities will work with UK academics and industry players to shape the future network to support O-RAN to drive a more diverse and innovative telecoms market. O-RAN allows operators to 'mix and match' equipment from multiple suppliers within a network and is key to the government's strategy to end the UK's reliance on a small number of companies to build and maintain 5G networks.

As part of this, the UK principles for the development and deployment of O-RAN equipment have been signed. The principles aim to direct public and private investment in O-RAN to deliver on its promise of a more competitive, innovative and secure telecommunications market.

The UK 5G Diversification Strategy, published in November 2020, sets out where the government will remove barriers to new suppliers, invest in open technologies such as O-RAN and work with like-minded countries to achieve the common goal of secure and resilient telecoms supply chains in order to achieve. The UK aims to have 35% of mobile network traffic pass through the O-RAN by the end of the decade.

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