VIAVI Celebrates Opening of Automated Open RAN Lab-as-a-Service Test Facility

VIAVI announced that it has opened its VIAVI Automated Lab-as-a-Service Open RAN testing facility in Chandler, Arizona with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by senior VIAVI management, customers, partners, government officials and dignitaries. Funded by a grant from the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund, VALOR offers a fully automated, open and impartial Lab-as-a-Service / Test-as-a-Service suite for Open RAN interoperability, performance and security.

VALOR addresses the challenges to accelerate Open RAN adoption and encourage competition by providing access to test capabilities that, typically, have only been within the reach of large, established players. Now, with its highly automated, on-demand “pay-as-you-go” approach to standardized testing, VALOR simplifies the development and deployment of Open RAN technologies, offering new entrants and start-ups a pathway to U.S. certification without the need for significant investment in hardware and software. 

Complementary to most current existing industry testing labs, VALOR facilitates better readiness for the certification, badging and acceptance tests at OTICs and CSP labs and is the first test service to be authorized by the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) for their system performance certification program. A dedicated online portal allows customers to easily sign up for the service, set up and schedule tests and generate reports optimized for technology development, system verification and pre-certification performance, security and pre-deployment simulation.

VALOR brings together the NITRO Wireless Open RAN Test Suite, the VAMOS (VIAVI Automation Management and Orchestration System) unified framework for hybrid physical and cloud lab testing, and technologies from industry-leading partners. These include a joint O-RU testbed with Rohde & Schwarz for O-RU conformance and network energy saving tests, a large ETS-Lindgren RF anechoic chamber for Massive MIMO and beamforming over-the-air (OTA) performance testing, and ‘golden’ Open RAN-compliant O-CU, O-DU and O-RU reference technologies from Fujitsu, SOLiD and Capgemini. 

VALOR leverages VIAVI’s proven performance and interoperability tests used throughout the industry for 3GPP and Open RAN with cloud, intelligence, automation and digital twin technology. Services include TM500 O-RU and O-DU and TeraVM O-CU subsystem conformance, performance and interoperability testing, and end-to-end testing with core emulation and TeraVM RAN scenario generator RIC/SMO tests covering conformance and performance validation and training of rApps and xApps.

The service will ultimately offer over 500 test cases compliant with O-RAN WG4, WG5, WG11, TIFG and 3GPP specifications.

"The grand opening of the VALOR lab is an important step in democratizing Open RAN testing for technology vendors by providing them with rapid access to comprehensive end-to-end solutions for everything from product development to performance stress tests", said Oleg Khaykin, President and Chief Executive Officer, VIAVI. "Supporting the services of existing industry test labs, VALOR closes existing test gaps and is set to play a key role in accelerating Open RAN adoption and encouraging new entrants to the Open RAN ecosystem."

“We know testing and evaluation is critical to Open RAN’s success and look forward to seeing the impact of these grants for years to come,” said Sarah Skaluba, Special Policy Advisor for Telecom Policy and the Innovation Fund, NTIA.

“We are thrilled to congratulate VIAVI on the opening of their VALOR Lab. This important milestone underscores the industry’s commitment to advancing the Open RAN ecosystem through comprehensive testing frameworks. As the first TIP-authorized test lab, VALOR’s cutting-edge virtual testing environment enhances TIP’s capabilities, driving innovation and ensuring robust, high-performance network solutions. By strengthening supply chain resilience and accelerating the global adoption of Open RAN technologies, our collaboration is set to provide operators with more flexible and cost-effective solutions. We’re excited about the positive impact this partnership will have on the industry.”

Kristian Toivo, Executive Director, TIP

"We are looking forward to strengthening our partnership with VIAVI Solutions, which has experienced substantial global growth. The inauguration of the VALOR Lab represents a pivotal advancement in bolstering the Open RAN ecosystem. At Rohde & Schwarz, our commitment to supporting O-RAN installations in the US remains unwavering, and we are enthusiastic about delivering local assistance for this initiative. Together, Rohde & Schwarz with VIAVI Solutions will continue to innovate intelligent solutions for our customers, driving progress in the industry."

Frank Dunn, President and CEO, Rohde & Schwarz USA, Inc.

“Fujitsu is committed to accelerating Open RAN through multivendor network interoperability, performance and security. With the addition of Fujitsu O-RAN compliant radio units, vRAN and transport equipment to the VALOR lab, we are embracing cooperative, open and impartial testing, thanks to VIAVI and the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration.”

Annie Bogue, Chief Operating Officer, Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc.

"SOLiD is gratified to contribute our C-Band radio equipment to the VIAVI VALOR lab to support cooperative, impartial testing of open 5G network architectures. As a full supporter and major contributor to Open RAN development, SOLiD looks forward to the advancement of interoperability enabled by the VALOR Lab, as well as continued growth of the ecosystem overall."

Yong Hoon Kang, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, SOLiD

“We are excited to see VIAVI’s innovative approach for OTA testing of base stations. Our collaboration with their talented team resulted in a customized chamber to bring the next generation of OTA base station test methodology to the industry.”

Joel Kellogg, Subject Matter Expert and Global Director of Marketing, ETS-Lindgren

"The importance of fully tested and interoperable solutions is a key challenge service providers face when modernizing their radio access networks (RANs). Red Hat is pleased to collaborate with VIAVI and the other partners involved in the VIAVI VALOR Lab to create pre-integrated, multi-vendor open RAN solutions that can benefit from the use of an open source and cloud-native application platform to help reduce complexity and cost, and to drive new revenue opportunities."      

Mark Longwell, Director, Telco and Edge Alliances, Hybrid Platforms Business Unit, Red Hat

Source: VIAVI announcement