New EchoStar testing lab set to help Open RAN flourish
EchoStar announced the launch of its new Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID). The Open RAN testing and evaluation lab is housed in EchoStar’s Cheyenne, Wyoming data center. This announcement is the latest in a series of related updates from the US, which has been heavily investing in its Open RAN research capabilities, largely due to the groundbreaking 2022 CHIPS and Science Act.
ORCID is the result of a $50 million grant from the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund which was awarded in January 2024. Led by DISH Wireless, ORCID will be run in partnership with its consortium partners Fujitsu, Mavenir and VMware by Broadcom.
According to a company statement, the new lab will provide trusted participants in the U.S. and around the world an opportunity to contribute to the development, deployment, and adoption of Open RAN. ORCID’s “living laboratory” features a real field test setup, designed to help drive the O-RAN ecosystem from lab to commercial deployment.
The NTIA awarded the grant as part of its first round of funding, totaling $140,500,000, aimed at enhancing testing and evaluation (T&E) as well as research and development (R&D) of testing methods. Other notable recipients include Viavi Systems, whose VALOR lab (VIAVI Automated Lab-as-a-Service for Open RAN) recently received certification from the Telecom Infra Project. Looking ahead, a much larger second round of $420,000,000 has been earmarked to stimulate innovation in Open Radio Units.
One of the challenges Open RAN faces is the high cost of testing and validating new products and solutions for live network deployments. Large incumbents like Nokia and Ericsson have a relative advantage in this area due to their substantial in-house resources, a benefit their smaller Open RAN rivals lack.
Additionally, the complexity of a multi-vendor environment demands a formalized overview and coordination process to avoid duplication of work across different labs. As we reported last week, TIP aims to address this through its lab certification program, which seeks to streamline and standardize testing efforts across the industry.
