VIAVI Solutions has opened its VIAVI Automated Lab-as-a-Service (VALOR) Open RAN testing facility in Chandler, Arizona. Funded by a grant from the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) 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.
