DISH Wireless to Establish Open RAN Center Using $50M NTIA Grant

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has awarded DISH Wireless a $50 million grant to establish the Open Radio Access Network Center for Integration & Development.

According to Charlie Ergen, DISH co-founder and chairman of DISH’s parent company EchoStar, ORCID will help strengthen the global Open RAN ecosystem and build the next generation of wireless networks. Specifically, Ergen shared that ORCID will test and evaluate solutions offered by U.S. and international vendors for Open RAN interoperability, performance and security.

Fujitsu, Mavenir, VMware, Analog Devices, ARM, Cisco, Dell, Intel, JMA Wireless, NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Samsung will also support ORCID, DISH Wireless said.

The U.S. government, particularly the defense sector, has been paying closer attention to Open RAN, which ensures the interoperability of mobile software and hardware components through the use of industry-wide specifications.

In October, the Department of Defense said adopting RAN and software-defined networking can help the agency integrate 5G into its computing infrastructure. Thomas Rondeau, principal director for FutureG and 5G in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and a past Potomac Officers Club speaker, shared that RAN enables interoperable connections among 5G networking components.