ORCID funded by $50 million Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund Grant, supporting global Open RAN investment
Vendors invited to apply for Open RAN commercial testing and evaluation opportunities
EchoStar Corporation announced the launch of the Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID), a state-of-the-art Open RAN (O-RAN) testing and evaluation lab housed at EchoStar’s Cheyenne, Wyoming, data center.
The facility, which is supported by a $50 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund (Innovation Fund), offers vendors the opportunity to test and validate O-RAN solutions using EchoStar’s live commercial-grade cloud-native Open RAN network.
“The Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID) is now open for business. We appreciate the trust and partnership of NTIA in this effort, which includes a historic $50 million grant from the Innovation Fund,” said Charlie Ergen, co-founder and chairman, EchoStar. “ORCID represents a significant milestone in both EchoStar and the U.S.’s journey to drive and lead the adoption of open and interoperable radio access networks. We look forward to the groundbreaking advancements expected to emerge from this initiative.”
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The launch of ORCID, which comes six months after NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson and Innovation Fund Director Amanda Toman announced the Innovation Fund grant at an EchoStar 5G site in Las Vegas, provides trusted participants in the U.S. and around the world an opportunity to contribute to the development, deployment, and adoption of open and interoperable standards-based radio access networks. ORCID’s “living laboratory” features a real field test setup, which will help drive the O-RAN ecosystem from the lab to commercial deployment.
EchoStar manages the ORCID consortium, which includes Fujitsu, Mavenir, VMware by Broadcom, and a variety of other technology partners. EchoStar, with the help of its consortium partners, validated O-RAN technology at scale across the country, building an O-RAN 5G network that provides connectivity to more than 240 million Americans nationwide.
“We encourage vendors interested in advancing the future of Open RAN technology to reach out and see how to participate in ORCID,” said Ravinder Jarral, VP of 5G Wireless Partner Engagement and Delivery and head of the ORCID program, EchoStar. “By partnering with ORCID, vendors can achieve substantial cost savings, faster time-to-market, improved quality of service, and rigorous validation for their O-RAN solutions.”
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