On July 15, 2024, EchoStar Corporation marked the start of operations at the Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID) at its state-of-the-art data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
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 trusted vendors the opportunity to test and validate O-RAN solutions using EchoStar's live commercial-grade cloud-native Open RAN network.
EchoStar staff and a representative from the NTIA gathered at the lab, which opened just six months after NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson and Innovation Fund Director Amanda Toman announced the grant at an EchoStar 5G site in Las Vegas.
The ORCID logo is an abstract orchid flower with each petal representing the many vendors and partners that make Open RAN technology possible.
After a team lunch, ORCID personnel joined ORCID lead Ravinder Jarral, VP of 5G Wireless Partner Engagement and Delivery, EchoStar, and Satish Sharma, Executive Vice President, Network Development, EchoStar, to kick off a facility tour.
Radio Units line the walls of the test facility, which is designed to test the commercial viability of new O-RAN solutions.
The tour showcased the cutting-edge capabilities of the center, which includes a dedicated data center and a testing room. ORCID is the only U.S. Open RAN test facility that features end-to-end testing against a live, commercial-grade O-RAN network, which is poised to drive the O-RAN ecosystem from lab to commercial deployment.
The ORCID data center is housed in EchoStar’s secure Cheyenne, Wyoming, facility.
During the tour, participants were shown two tech demonstrations. The first demo showcased a test setup and tools in the data center, while the second presented sample test cases and outcomes in the testing center. All of ORCID’s testing is managed through a dedicated web portal (accessed at www.ORCID.us) that allows registered participants across the globe to submit projects (O-RAN products, including hardware & software) for testing, monitor their progress, and interact with the ORCID team without the need to have their organization’s personnel on site in Cheyenne. These demos highlighted ORCID's role as a "living laboratory" for validating and deploying O-RAN solutions at scale.
ORCID staff demonstrate the ORCID web portal (available at www.ORCID.us), which provides participants the ability to submit testing requests and monitor their progress from initial acceptance to completion.
The day concluded with a cake cutting ceremony and closing remarks by Sharma and Jarral, who both encouraged vendors to participate in ORCID. They also highlighted the importance of ORCID in advancing Open RAN technology and thanked the NTIA for their support.
EchoStar’s ORCID team leaders gather for a cake cutting ceremony to mark the start of operations at the ORCID facility.
ORCID also hosted its first advisory board meeting with executive representatives from its consortium partners. The board discussed how to promote O-RAN innovation and encourage broader adoption through the new ORCID lab.
ORCID Advisory board.
The meeting featured Padma Sudarsan, VMware by Broadcom; Sridhar Rajagopal, Mavenir; Solyman Ashrafi, Fujitsu; and Ravinder Jarral and Jens Sohn from EchoStar and Boost Mobile.
Interested vendors may now submit applications via the ORCID web portal, which can be accessed at www.ORCID.us. Stay tuned for more updates as ORCID continues to pave the way for the future of Open RAN technology.
