LIONS Successfully Completes SONIC Labs Cohort 5 Open RAN Testing Programme
LIONS is proud to announce our successful participation in the SONIC (SmartRAN Open Network Interoperability Centre) Labs Cohort 5, a prestigious joint programme between Digital Catapult and Ofcom designed to accelerate the adoption of open network solutions in the UK telecommunications ecosystem. Our advanced 8T8R n77 Radio Unit (RU) demonstrated exceptional performance throughout this rigorous evaluation process, which for the first time incorporated outdoor test scenarios on London streets to validate real-world deployment capabilities.
Advancing Multi-Vendor Open RAN Solutions
The Cohort 5 programme focused on evaluating Open RAN products at scale while validating critical metrics including performance, handover, and mobility in reference networks. LIONS’ participation exemplifies the core principle of O-RAN architecture—multi-vendor disaggregation—as our RU seamlessly integrated with existing Central Units (CU) and Distributed Units (DU) from different vendors in the reference network.
During the comprehensive testing programme, our 8T8R n77 RU established full-function user equipment connections in both laboratory and outdoor environments. The unit demonstrated impressive capabilities, including:
- High-density support through 8T8R MIMO performance testing
- Flexible configuration switching between 8T8R and 2×4T4R modes
- Successful handover with another vendor’s RU, confirming multi-vendor interoperability
Real-World Validation and Commercial Readiness
LIONS’ technology passed all measurement requirements across both indoor staging and outdoor mobility testing scenarios. The inclusion of street-level testing in London provided particularly valuable insights, bringing the evaluation closer to actual deployment conditions and validating our solution’s commercial readiness.
This successful completion of the SONIC Labs programme underscores LIONS’ commitment to developing robust, flexible Open RAN solutions that enable network operators to build diverse, interoperable, and high-performing telecommunications infrastructure.
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