The $1.5 billion Wireless Innovation Fund supports the development of open and interoperable wireless networks as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda. Open and interoperable wireless equipment will help drive competition, strengthen global supply chain resiliency and lower costs for consumers and network operators.
The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has awarded more than $98 million to 16 projects in the first round of grants from the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund.
NOFO #1 Awardees
| Applicant | Award Type | Funding Amount | Project Title and Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| AT&T | T&E Facility | $42,299,693.72 | Acceleration of Compatibility and Commercialization for Open RAN Deployments (ACCoRD) A cross-industry consortium led by AT&T, Verizon, NTT Docomo, and Reliance Jio will establish a testing, evaluation and R&D center in the Dallas Technology Corridor and a satellite facility in the Washington, D.C area. The center will focus testing on network performance, interoperability, security, and facilitate research into new testing methods. |
| Booz Allen Hamilton | Security/Cybersecurity | $1,991,300 | Enhancing O-RAN Systems Against Sophisticated Attacks This project will identify test methods that can advance state-of-the-art Open RAN security and defend open networks against sophisticated threats. |
| Cirrus360 | Improved Testing Methods – Network Functions | $1,999,140 | A Digital Twin Approach to Testing Multi-Vendor Open RAN Solutions: Cirrus360 proposes to develop a new test method that uses a digital twin of integrated RAN components to model their implementation. Cirrus360 will assess these network components against automated test cases meant to simulate system failure. The digital twin model can predict potential implementation issues and offer suggestions for corrections. |
| DeepSig Inc. | Improved Testing Methods - Radio | $1,492,269.00 | Improving O-RAN Air-Interface Performance with Data-Driven and Generative AI Testing and Evaluation Methods A research and development program to dramatically improve the fidelity, speed, and repeatability of OpenRAN (ORAN) Air-Interface performance testing by employing data and AI to model the propagation and interference environment more accurately and efficiently. This program will create a new set of standard ORAN air-interface performance measurement tools and scenarios that will revolutionize the evaluation of interoperable ORAN components under real world conditions. |
| DISH Wireless | T&E Facility | $50,000,000 | 5GLM: Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID): DISH Wireless will collaborate with Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc., Mavenir Systems, Inc., and VMWare, Inc. to create the Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID). The Center is further supported by technology partners Analog Devices, ARM, Cisco, Dell, Intel, JMA, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Samsung. ORCID will serve as a “living laboratory” that combines both lab and field testing activities. |
| Michigan State University | Automation | $1,731,182 | AI-Enabled Efficient Testing and Evaluation for RU, DU, and CU Components of 5G Radio Access Networks This project will formulate AI-assisted testing methods for network components like the radio unit (RU) and design an AI-based testing software framework to automate broader 5G Open RAN testing. |
| Mississippi State University | Security/Cybersecurity | $1,322,825 | Testing Methods R&D on Security Metrics, Measures, and Test Procedures for Accessible and Customizable Testing This project will create test user equipment that evaluates 5G and Open RAN security in a standard UMTS air interface. |
| New York University (NYU) | Improved Testing Methods - Radio | $2,000,000.00 | Testing for Open, Secure and Adaptive Spectrum Sharing The broad goal of the project is to develop testing and evaluation procedures for open and interoperable solutions for Next Generation (5G-Advanced and Beyond) RAN components with a focus on both shared and adversarial spectrum scenarios. |
| Northeastern University | Automation | $1,996,592 | AutoRAN: Automated End-to-End Continuous Testing for Open and Disaggregated Cellular Systems: Northeastern University aims to develop and operationalize AutoRAN, a new testing methodology based on a collection of automated and continuous software pipelines designed to automatically test disaggregated Radio Access Network (RAN) components. |
| Northeastern University | Automation | $1,998,773 | DigiRAN: High-Fidelity Digital Twins for Interoperability, Security and Performance Testing of Open RAN Systems DigiRAN is a digital framework that enables diverse, low-cost, and automated testing of three core components for 5G Open RAN: interoperability, performance, and security. |
| Northeastern University | Energy Efficiency | $1,989,783.00 | TENORAN: Automated and fine-grained energy-efficiency profiling of Open RAN systems via high-fidelity standardized testing scenarios Creation of a fine-grain, end-to-end, and accurate energy efficiency testing platform that we refer to as TENORAN, which will enable the construction of sustainable and energy-efficient wireless networks. |
| Open Networking Foundation | Energy Efficiency | $1,964,462 | 5G Energy Efficiency: Metrics, Models, and Systems Tests In partnership with Rutgers WINLAB, this project will develop testing methods that assess the energy consumption and efficiency of individual 5G network components and end-to-end Open RAN architectures. |
| PhasorLab | Improved Testing Methods - Equipment/Software | $1,999,984 | 5GLM: A Large Language Model to Simulate UE Models at Scale with Applications to Realistic ORAN Network Testing With support from Parallel Wireless and Cimulate, this project will construct a large language model (LLM) that can accurately simulate and model user equipment for 5G use cases. |
| William Marsh Rice University | Energy Efficiency | $1,943,101 | ETHOS: A Multidimensional Approach to Testing Stability, Energy Efficiency, and Performance in Machine Learning-Enabled 5G Radio Access Networks: The proposed research will develop the ETHOS testing framework. This framework will examine communication performance along with the impact that the computing environment and machine learning domain have on RAN software performance. |
| VIAVI Solutions | T&E Facility | $21,714,112 | 5GLM: VIAVI Automated Lab-as-a-Service for Open RAN (VALOR): VIAVI Solutions, Inc, proposes to establish a hybrid physical lab infrastructure and cloud-based testing lab-as-a-service (LaaS) or VALOR. VALOR aims to create a fully automated, cooperative, open and impartial testing-as-a-service (TaaS) offering that is dedicated to Open RAN interoperability, performance and security. |
| Virginia Tech | Improved Testing Methods - Network Functions | $2,000,000 | Learning-Based ORAN Testing This project will leverage a neural network to develop a unified approach to O-RAN testing, focused especially on finding common baselines for key performance metrics. |
| Virginia Tech | Security/Cybersecurity | $2,000,000 | A Holistic Cybersecurity Testing Framework for 5G Radio Access Networks: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University proposes to develop a novel and comprehensive cybersecurity testing framework and demonstrate its effectiveness using 5G O-RAN Proof-of-Concept (PoC) testbeds. |