South Korea last week pushed ahead with forging a national open RAN group to drive local businesses’ technological competitiveness, detailing its strategic plan and membership.
The Ministry of Science and ICT (MIST) held an official opening for the Open RAN Industry Alliance (ORIA) first introduced in April.
It comprises 30 members including operators SK Telecom (SKT), KT and LG Uplus, along with local and international equipment vendors, and a number of universities and government agencies.
In addition to the operators, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are board members.
SKT is the inaugural chair, with private 5G open RAN vendor HFR a co-chair.
MIST outlined three key objectives for ORIA: participate in the planning and coordination of the government’s open RAN R&D roadmap; take a leading role in domestic and international demonstration and interoperability verification projects; and actively engage in establishing an international certification system and standardisation process for open RAN equipment.
The overall goal is to create a foundation for entering the global market, MIST stated.
MIST minister Lee Jong Ho said the goal is “to create a collaborative and mutually beneficial ecosystem among the public and private sectors, as well as large businesses and SMEs.”
The group will engage with international development of open RAN “which will expand the outreach of Korea in terms of cooperation in advanced technologies in general”.
Last month, Dell’Oro Group downgraded a forecast for open RAN revenue growth due to a maturing market.
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