Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) set to launch the latest round of funding from the Open Networks Research and Development Fund.
The Open Networks R&D Fund is the £250 million diversification-focused fund which aims to further the ambitious plans set out in the 5G Supply Chain Diversification Strategy.
Running until the end of March 2025, the fund comprises a series of activities focused on enabling different aspects of open interface architectures and ecosystems. It aims to help to diversify the UK telecoms sector and create thriving ecosystems that are ready for the future, including 6G. It also provides flexibility and new options for businesses and researchers as the market develops.
We're pleased today to give industry early notice of the upcoming Open Networks Ecosystem (ONE) competition. ONE will aim to tackle key barriers to the adoption of open mobile networks: trials in areas of high demand density (HDD) to de-risk adoption by MNOs; and development of Open RAN software and hardware solutions to improve performance vs proprietary solutions to accelerate uptake. The UK government has identified these as the current areas to prioritise given the extensive market engagement undertaken over the past six months.
HDD sites like city centres or train stations represent the most challenging environments for the technical performance of mobile networks. The aim is to develop, demonstrate and test approaches for optimising mobile network performance in High Demand Density environments.
The competition will also hope to find projects which are addressing issues around radio frequency components. The reason is, from hardware to chipsets to radio tech, it is important to ensure that the building blocks for the telecoms ecosystem are secure and diverse.
The last area that the ONE competition will focus on is software. The aim is for projects looking at software to explore solutions to the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), X app and R app, software components in order to make them more efficient, less energy consuming, quicker and secure.
The competition builds on the progress of existing projects in flight from the Open Networks Research and Development Fund such as Future RAN Competition (FRANC), the Future Open Networks Research Challenge, as well as bodies such as SONIC Labs, the UK Telecoms Innovation Network and the UK Telecoms Lab.
More information will be provided shortly, including the competition guidance, a briefing event and how to apply, via UKTIN and the Open Networks Research and Development Fund gov.uk page, so please keep a look out for further updates.
