Google is now part of the O-RAN Alliance, as part of its strategy to be involved in the 5G and telecoms space.
Google Cloud’s managing director Amol Phadke and senior director Ankur Jain said joining the global group will allow the company to jointly drive and speed up Radio Access Network (RAN) industry initiatives. The alliance was formed in 2018 by China Mobile, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, and NTT DOCOMO. It includes researchers, telecoms vendors, mobile network operators, and other people working in the RAN space.
The alliance’s goal
The alliance aims to re-shape the RAN industry to adopt more open, intelligent, virtualized, and fully interoperable mobile networks. Google has joined the group intending to contribute towards the standards and innovations which will guide and power the industry.
Google says that it believes the industry-wide open reference architectures and interfaces for RAN are important in spurring innovation across CSP mobile networks. It cites the contribution of the O-RAN Alliance in significantly driving advances in the RAN layer and is seeing massive adoption of innovations by significantly large CSPs who have signed up for the technology in its early days.
Google’s contribution
Google will specifically work on the O-RAN initiatives in software, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments and 5G, in addition to artificial intelligence technologies. The search engine giant said in a statement that it is excited by the journey ahead and looks forward to the partnership with alliance members to help bring O-RAN ambitions to reality.
Google published its Google Mobile Edge Cloud strategy in March last year, with a focus on three areas that include the monetization of 5G networks, data-driven customer experiences, and the improvement of operational efficiency across crucial telecoms systems.
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