Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio has joined the O-RAN Alliance board along with TIM and Verizon.

The O-RAN Alliance is a world-wide, carrier-led effort to drive new levels of openness in the radio access network of next generation wireless systems.

O-RAN is organized as a series of work groups focused on specific aspects of the RAN open architecture and interfaces, with a Technical Steering Committee (TSC) coordinating the overall work program.

“This is a great opportunity for the Service Provider Industry as network, services and applications leverage cloud native platforms and the right time to fundamentally transform the RAN infrastructure and platforms. We look forward to working closely with the O-RAN Alliance in the acceleration and adoption of open, intelligent, and programmable RAN architectures that can clearly disrupt the building blocks of 5G and beyond,” said Mathew Oommen, President, Reliance Jio.

He added that the telco looks forward to working with all the Alliance Partners in shaping the foundation of future networks around the globe.

“TIM is a strong supporter of collaborative communities and standards, and we think that open RAN will be a very important part in the big 5G transformation that is coming. We will also contribute to O-RAN’s work with our mmWave Testing Lab in Torino, one of the first in Europe," said Elisabetta Romano, TIM CTO.

Ed Chan, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Architect of Verizon said that the telco will leverage the foundational success of xRAN to accelerate the work in O-RAN.

"Verizon looks forward to contributing to the success of O-RAN in realizing network components' interoperability at a global scale to create the next generation of flexible wireless networks for our customers," he added.