VIAVI Solutions has teamed up with Calnex Solutions, an expert in network synchronization and emulation, to offer a range of testing solutions for Open RAN products. Their testbeds cover protocol, signal, and timing aspects, making it easier and more cost-effective to perform in-house Open RAN testing for pre-certification validation. These setups are ready to use immediately, without the need for time-consuming debugging.
As 5G and 6G networks transition toward Open RAN and AI-RAN architectures, the telecom infrastructure market is becoming accessible to a wider range of players, including startups and university spin-offs. While this expansion can drive faster innovation, multivendor environments demand strict compliance with performance, security, interoperability, and reliability standards. Although official certification through O-RAN ALLIANCE and 3GPP labs is required, conducting pre-testing is crucial to ensure smooth certification and avoid the high costs associated with test failures.
Through the VIAVI and Calnex partnership, manufacturers of O-RU, O-DU and O-CU equipment can access three testbeds immediately:
- an end-to-end and cybersecurity test solution for fronthaul and midhaul;
- an O-RU and O-DU test solution with S-plane testing; and
- core network emulation test bundles for the backhaul.
Additional testbeds are in development.
The joint solutions leverage VIAVI’s TM500 and XEdge test platforms for emulated and real user equipment scenarios, as well as its TeraVM network traffic generator. The comprehensive testing capabilities are then completed via specialist hardware from Calnex, notably its Paragon-neo for O-RU and O-DU synchronization, SNE-Ignite for fronthaul and midhaul impairment emulation and SNE-X for core network emulation.
“During the development phase, many O-RUs are only tested with a single O-DU/O-CU vendor, which results in failure under real-world network conditions. This issue is compounded as the industry lacks tools to emulate realistic fronthaul conditions,” said Ian Langley, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Business Unit, VIAVI. “Our partnership with Calnex puts these tools directly into the developers’ hands to vastly speed and simplify Open RAN test lab setup.”
“Companies urgently need in-house labs to validate their Open RAN systems, but establishing them has traditionally required equipment from multiple vendors and can take several months of debugging to ensure interoperability,” said Tommy Cook, CEO, Calnex. “VIAVI and Calnex’s offerings are highly complementary, and we’ve undertaken the complex integration work to create these first-of-their-kind comprehensive testing systems and eliminate the issues that have plagued many developers.”
The integrated systems from VIAVI and Calnex allow for full O-RAN and 3GPP conformance testing including key WG4, WG5 and TIFG specifications, while also emulating realistic network impairments like jitter and delay. This enables the rigorous testing of key functions like S-plane resilience and advanced scenarios such as multi-cell handovers, and is supported by powerful root-cause debugging and cybersecurity vulnerability testing across all O-RAN components.
