LIVE FROM MWC LAS VEGAS 2024: The US Department of Defense (DoD) and other government agencies are standing behind open RAN as the backbone of next generation communication systems.

Dr. Tom Rondeau, principal director for FutureG, DoD, explained government agencies are collaborating with universities and telecommunications companies to develop software-defined open RAN-based networks.

“We’re seeing this on the ground in Ukraine all the time,” he said. “The pace of innovation warfare that’s happening there is astounding and can be terrifying.

“When we look at the wireless networks and how important communication is to this ability to fight wars and to be relevant to advance our capabilities and concepts, we have to be more innovative. We have to be more adaptive.”

Rondeau explained the government agencies are using open RAN as the basis for its open centralised unit, distributed unit (OCUDA) programme.

The three core elements of OCUDA are the virtualisation of high-performance hardware: a commercial software-base for CU and DU to enable unique DoD capabilities: and a management architecture that includes spectrum and intelligent network features.

He stated the DoD put its money and efforts to resolve closed network problems by “breaking open these boxes even further and creating an open-source model of the future of telecommunications”.

“We want early adoption by researchers, so we’re already with many of the top-tier universities in wireless communications and engineering to build the talents, build the expertise inside of them,” he explained.

He noted with OCUDA, the partners can create more resilient, agile networks at a large scale.

“It allows us to create resilience in the system, because, again, we have more eyes on the system,” he said. “We have more ability to understand what’s happening out there, and move patches, and move features at the rate of relevancy.

“This should be transformative in the world of telecommunications.”