ETSI and NGMN have announced the creation of the ETSI Industry Specification Group on Open Radio equipment Interface (ISG ORI) that will specify an open interoperable interface for radio equipment in distributed mobile cellular base stations--GSM, UMTS and LTE. ISG ORI is a direct result of requirement work undertaken by the NGMN Alliance, in its Open BBU RRH Interface (OBRI) project, and leading mobile network operators and telecom equipment vendors have agreed to become founding members.
The use of distributed radio equipment can lead to significant cost savings for a mobile operator, as well as offering a greater level of flexibility in network design and deployment. The interface that will be defined by the ISG ORI is an important step towards realising these benefits through widespread deployment of distributed radio equipment.
Peter Meissner, Operating Officer of the NGMN Alliance, commented, "The Board of the NGMN Alliance highly appreciates the broad vendor commitment and support for the activities to drive open interface specifications. The NGMN Alliance will follow the future specification work closely and will actively participate in the ISG to enable the early implementation of this essential specification in future mobile radio access networks."