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2023 5G Challenge Contestants Announced!

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Congratulations to the following seven contestants selected from 23 white paper applications to participate in the 2023 5G Challenge. Contestants will first be tested in a stand-alone emulated environment before graduating to integrated end-to-end sessions with other participant subsystems. Contestants will then form two teams of two pairs for mobility testing consisting of a combined central unit and distributed unit (CU+DU), and a radio unit (RU).

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CU+DU Contestants
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RU Contestants

 

NTIAʼs Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS), in collaboration with the US Department of Defense (DoD), is hosting a two-year challenge to further accelerate the adoption of:

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  • Open interfaces
  • Interoperable subsystems
  • Secure networks
  • Modular, multi-vendor solutions

In 2022, NTIA/ITS conducted the 5G Challenge Preliminary Event: RAN Subsystem Interoperability. This successful event demonstrated end-to-end data communication sessions using multiple protocols across a multi-vendor, interoperable, open RAN architecture.

The 2023 5G Challenge is offering a $7 million prize pool for participants who successfully integrate their RAN subsystems with multiple other RAN participant subsystems and outperform their peers. The 2023 5G Challenge consists of multiple stages during which contestants are evaluated and prizes are awarded.

The 2023 5G Challenge Timeline 

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2022 Event

The 2022 Event, titled "5G Challenge 2022 Event: RAN Subsystem Interoperability", was the first of two 5G Challenge competitions. In this first-year event, NTIA/ITS offered a $3,000,000 prize purse to contestants who successfully integrated open RAN 5G hardware and/or software solutions.

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