SONIC Labs next phase live following £15 million Government investment

Following a £15 million investment by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Digital Catapult and Ofcom’s SONIC Labs initiative has entered its next phase. The SONIC Labs programme enables telecoms suppliers to integrate early stage products into working end-to-end systems and enables testing in cutting edge labs and real-world mobile network settings.

SONIC Labs delivers advancements in Open RAN technology, a key pillar in UK Government’s 5G Diversification Strategy. Following SONIC Labs’ initial phase, where seven vendors demonstrated the value of Open-RAN integration, the programme will now be expanded to bring through a further four groups of new Open RAN products over the next two years. The programme’s new phase will include the creation of additional physical lab environments at multiple sites including Digital Catapult and Ofcom, field trial locations and enhanced test and measurement solutions. This is complemented by programmes of work to carry out interoperability experimentation between products, market engagement, and engagement with network and service providers standards and specification development, other testbeds and international activities and organisations.

For more information on SONIC Labs please click here.