Calnex and Viavi Partnership

Calnex Solutions plc (AIM: CLX), a leading provider of test and measurement solutions for the global telecommunications and cloud computing markets, has partnered with VIAVI Solutions Inc. (VIAVI) (NASDAQ: VIAV) to provide a suite of test solutions for the comprehensive testing of Open RAN products across the protocol, signal and timing domains. These testbeds simplify and reduce the cost of developing an in-house Open RAN testing for pre-certification validation and can be set up immediately with no debugging.

The shift to Open RAN and AI-RAN in 5G and 6G systems is opening the telecom infrastructure market to a greater number of companies, including startups and university spinouts. While this has the potential to accelerate innovation, multivendor ecosystems require strict adherence to performance, security, interoperability and reliability standards. Although final O-RAN ALLIANCE and 3GPP certification takes place at official labs, pre-testing is essential to ensure success and avoid the costs of failing.

Through the Calnex and VIAVI partnership, manufacturers of O-RU, O-DU and O-CU equipment can access three testbeds immediately. The integrated systems from Calnex and VIAVI allow for full O-RAN and 3GPP conformance testing, while also emulating realistic network impairments like jitter and delay. This enables the rigorous testing of key functions.

Tommy Cook, Chief Executive Officer and founder of Calnex, said: "O-RAN has opened up traditional telecoms architecture to new market entrants, creating a widening pool of organisations requiring telecoms test solutions. We have experienced success with our product offerings in recent years as a result of the O-RAN initiative, and with this partnership with VIAVI, a global leader in communications test and measurement technologies, we hope to build on that yet further.

"Companies urgently need in-house labs to validate their Open RAN systems, but establishing them has traditionally required equipment from multiple vendors and can take several months of debugging to ensure interoperability. VIAVI and Calnex's offerings are highly complementary, and we've undertaken the complex integration work to create these first-of-their-kind comprehensive testing systems and eliminate the issues that have plagued many developers. Early customer feedback has been positive and we look forward to maximising the partnership's potential across key regions."

Ian Langley, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Business Unit of VIAVI, said: "During the development phase, many O-RUs are only tested with a single O-DU/O-CU vendor, which results in failure under real-world network conditions. This issue is compounded as the industry lacks tools to emulate realistic fronthaul conditions. Our partnership with Calnex puts these tools directly into the developers' hands to vastly speed up and simplify Open RAN test lab setup."