Open Network Featured Article

It feels like for decades, we’ve heard industry chatter of 5G. This long awaited technology iteration is finally on the precipice of making the mainstream. Innovation and support coming from groups like the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) are key in bringing this evolution to fruition, and a recent announcement from the ONF highlights how close we are to 5G.

At the recently concluded Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) Americas, ONF and the M-CORD project put progress on display. Showcasing a solution based on the CORD Platform, and hosted by the ONF, the display highlighted how the platform is leveraging cloud-native approaches to support the needs of mobile operators.

ONF had a busy week at the event, with a number of live demonstrations. In terms of disaggregation and virtualization of Radio Access Network (RAN) these include: SD-RAN prototyped by implementing xRAN as an ONOS application; Wi-Fi RAN slicing; commercial small cells integrated with M-CORD, CBRS spectrum support; and LTE (News - Alert) + Wi-Fi link aggregation. Other demos at the ONF booth included open source disaggregated mobile, and end-to-end solution PoCs and capabilities, which were diversification of hardware platform options for M-CORD; multi-access CORD; and end-to-end network slice stitching and rapid deployment of programmable service chains.

CORD and M-CORD have emerged as the platforms of choice for service providers, with agility and scale being two of the primary reasons.

"M-CORD is getting stronger by the day," said Oguz Sunay, M-CORD Chief Architect, ONF. "The breadth of activity, the number of contributions, and the growing footprint of lab trial activity among operators worldwide make it clear that M-CORD is the platform of choice for innovating with 5G technologies."

They say that close in only good in horseshoes and hand grenades, but 5G is tangibly close. And the progress toward full scale deployment is most definitely encouraging, with the ONF serving as one of the driving forces.

Are you ready for 5G?