Jerry Petersen
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has awarded $42.3 million in funding for the Acceleration of Compatibility and Commercialization for Open RAN Deployments project.
Overseen by a consortium of industry and academic organizations under the leadership of AT&T and Verizon, the ACCoRD project seeks to establish a testing, evaluation and research and development center that will work to test network performance, interoperability and security, the NTIA said Monday. The facility will also work to develop new testing methods.
The R&D center will be built in the Dallas Technology Corridor and will be accompanied by a satellite facility to be established in the Washington, D.C. area.
The ACCoRD project funding marks the fourth and final award under the initial notice of funding opportunity for the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund, a 10-year, $1.5 billion program which will finance efforts to develop open and interoperable networks and, according to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, support efforts “that will unlock new opportunities for America to lead in the global telecommunications market, strengthen our supply chains and drive down costs.”
With the inclusion of the ACCoRD project award, the Innovation Fund has already released $140 million.
