Digital Catapult > Test-as-a-Service > Why OTIC. Why Now.

Why OTIC. Why Now.

The window for Open RAN vendors to establish credibility in the market is narrowing. Here is what that means for you.

The telecoms market is moving faster than most vendors are ready for

MNOs across the UK and Europe are no longer asking whether Open RAN works, they are asking which vendors can prove it. Conformance certification, interoperability badging, and independently validated test results are becoming the baseline requirement for any serious commercial conversation and not just a differentiator testing is now an important entry point.

Vendors who can demonstrate that their product has been tested, validated, and certified in a real multi-vendor environment are shortening their sales cycles, reducing deployment risk for their customers, and building the kind of commercial credibility that accelerates deals. Vendors who cannot are finding that credibility gap increasingly difficult to close.

What OTIC is, and why it matters

Digital Catapult’s Open Testing and Integration Centre (OTIC) accredited Open Networks Lab is the UK’s only O-RAN Alliance-accredited OTIC facility. That accreditation is the result of meeting the O-RAN Alliance’s rigorous technical standards for conformance testing, interoperability testing, and end-to-end validation.

What that means in practice is that a test result, interoperability badge, or conformance certification issued by OTIC carries weight with MNOs, system integrators, and procurement teams in a way that internal testing cannot replicate. Independent validation from an accredited facility is a different class of evidence.

Our Open Networks Lab environment provides a live, multi-vendor Open RAN testbed, which utilises real equipment, real interfaces, real integration scenarios. We test in the conditions your product will face in deployment, not via simulations or a controlled single-vendor environment.

Who this is for

If you are developing any of the following, there is a direct and specific reason to be talking to us:

RU vendors

navigating O-RU conformance requirements and the certification timelines that come with them. The conformance process has well-known bottlenecks. We know where they are and how to move through them efficiently.

DU and CU vendors

who need to demonstrate that their software stack integrates cleanly in a multi-vendor environment. Integration complexity is the single most common reason deployments stall. Independent validation removes that objection before it becomes a problem.

System integrators

who carry delivery risk on behalf of their clients. If something fails in a live deployment, the accountability sits with you. Pre-deployment validation at an accredited facility is the most effective way to manage that exposure.

What a TaaS engagement looks like

Testing-as-a-Service at the Digital Catapult OTIC accredited lab is a structured, time-bound engagement designed to produce a specific, commercially useful outcome not an open-ended research exercise.

Depending on your product and your objectives, an engagement typically covers one or more of the following:

O-RU conformance testing against O-RAN Alliance specifications
Interoperability testing in a live multi-vendor environment
End-to-end system validation
Interoperability badge issuance
Technical reporting suitable for use in commercial conversations with MNOs and system integrators

If you are not sure which of these applies to you, that is exactly what an initial conversation with our technical team is for.

Vendors who have been through OTIC TaaS

ISWireless came to Digital Catapult with a DU/CU stack that needed end-to-end validation in a multi-vendor environment.

Read the case study

G-REIGNS required interoperability testing in preparation for European market entry.