NTIA Fund Looking to Promote Innovation and Show Benefits of ORAN
The focus of the third stage of NTIA’s Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund is to demonstrate the “real world capabilities” of open radio access networks and get more small players involved, Amanda Toman, director of the fund, said Friday. Toman spoke during a Network Media Group webcast. Applications were due in April on a notice of funding opportunity (NOFO), under which NTIA will award as much as $450 million.
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The goal is to demonstrate to potential customers that “moving to these open and inoperable networks … does provide value,” Toman said. There has been some reluctance on the part of carriers to move away from the legacy networks that they’re used to, she said.
The third NOFO also tries to address a “technology gap” by “enabling a software automation tool” so that adoption of ORAN “is a bit more streamlined,” Toman said. NTIA wants to make it possible for smaller companies to “demonstrate capabilities,” she said. “The grant money should … enable them to get into the ecosystem. Without the fund, I think there’s a real gap.”
AT&T is “very excited” about the NOFO, said Rob Soni, AT&T vice president of RAN. Growing ORAN adoption will take a concerted effort, he said. AT&T’s open network is live, but “doesn’t have scale yet,” he said. “We’ll gain scale later this year.”
Anand Chandrasekher, CEO of AI company Aira Technologies, said carriers should seek not to differentiate their open networks from industry standards without a good reason for doing so. “If it’s a standard, conform to the standard,” he said. “Don’t add a little bit to the standard so you’re slightly differentiated from your competition. That would be differentiating without a difference.”
The “dream” for a lot of carriers has been automating their networks, Chandrasekher said. Generative AI “effectively enables that to be possible,” though “not on day one.” GenAI can “automate the process of automation and by doing so unleash speed,” he said.
In January, NTIA awarded the final grants from the second stage of the program (see 2501170060).