Middle East ORAN Consortium publishes the first whitepaper

Middle East ORAN Consortium publishes the first whitepaper

KUWAIT: The Middle East Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) consortium has published the first open RAN whitepaper with a focus on brownfield deployment opportunities and challenges. The consortium has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for ORAN collaboration in 2021 including Zain, e& formerly known as Etisalat Group, stc, du from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), Mobily, Batelco, and Omantel.

The consortium launched the first regional community lab earlier this year, following the signing of the Open RAN MoU last year. The move will accelerate the testing and implementation of Open RAN solutions in their networks to support the early adoption and development of a robust regional ICT ecosystem.

Zain Group and Zain Kuwait Chief Technical Officer Nawaf Al-Gharabally commented: “With today’s announcement, we reach yet another step towards solidifying this partnership between the region’s top ICT leaders. At Zain, we’re excited to explore the opportunities and challenges of ORAN deployment with our partners to further pursue our goal of being Kuwait’s leading digital enabler. The shared knowledge and experiences in this whitepaper will provide an invaluable resource that sets a clear path to drive innovation for the ICT sector across the Middle East.”

The launch of the first ORAN whitepaper signals the