Open RAN is one of the main themes of the 24th RNP Workshop (WRNP), which takes place on May 22nd and 23rd, in Brasília. It is a movement in defense of an open standard for radio access networks, which seeks to democratize access to telecommunications networks around the world.

The OpenRAN@Brasil program, launched by RNP two years ago, is part of this global movement. The Brazilian initiative will be highlighted at the WRNP, with a table dedicated to explaining the program and its current development status.

“We want to present the results of the OpenRAN@Brasil program to the WRNP community. After a year of the project, we already have important results to share. If all goes well, we plan to demo a use case. Open RAN is gaining strength within the global wireless community, and our project is a great proof of concept for this possibility”, says Iara Machado, Director of Research, Development and Innovation at RNP since 2018.

OpenRAN@Brasil: a partnership between RNP and CPQD

In 2021, RNP, the Center for Research and Development in Telecommunications (CPQD) and other partners launched OpenRAN@Brasil, within the Priority Program in Informatics (PPI) for Advanced Internet, which aims to support the safe development of 5G and accelerate the advancement of the open network ecosystem in the country.

To prepare the program, RNP and CPQD assembled a multidisciplinary team that will plan, develop, integrate and implement the OpenRAN@Brasil testbed. The testbed is a physical or virtual experimentation platform that allows the researcher to perform experiments in a safe environment and observe the results in a consistent and replicable way. The goal is for all the knowledge acquired to be shared with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI), responsible for OpenRAN@Brasil.

In March of this year, RNP launched the program's first public call for tenders aimed at the academic sector so that working groups could be formed to cooperate in the development of the OpenRAN@Brasil testbed. The objective is to advance in the development and addition of functionalities and technologies of the test environment.

Iara Machado believes that the program will make a fundamental contribution to further research on 5G technology in Brazil, which has the potential to solve problems in different sectors, such as agribusiness, telemedicine, education, among others. “It is still a great challenge to explore the full potential of 5G, without being limited only to the issue of connectivity”, analyzes Iara.

Other featured topics at WRNP

In addition to highlighting Open RAN and the OpenRAN@Brasil program, WRNP 2023 will also discuss topics such as Artificial Intelligence, preparing machines to interpret data, Web 3.0, Machine Learning and many others.

Held since 1999, WRNP is an annual event that gives participants the opportunity to learn about the main technological advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and also the most relevant topics being discussed in the area.

As is tradition, the workshop takes place in conjunction with the Brazilian Symposium on Computer Networks and Distributed Systems (SBRC), held by the Brazilian Computing Society (SBC) and the National Laboratory of Computer Networks (Larc).

Those unable to attend this year's WRNP in person at the Royal Tulip hotel in Brasília will be able to follow the live transmission of the event's main program for free. See here for more information on how to sign up.