SK Telecom, LG Uplus and KT are some of the members of the new O-RAN alliance in South Korea

South Korea recently launched the Open RAN Industry Alliance (ORIA), a national body with the main aim of developing a domestic Open RAN (O-RAN) ecosystem in the country.

In a release, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT noted that the ORIA, which will collaborate with international Open RAN industry bodies such as the O-RAN Alliance, brings together the country’s mobile carriers, local and international vendors, research firms and academia to collaborate on O-RAN innovations and develop a public-private ecosystem in the Asian nation.

The members of the O-RAN Industry Alliance include mobile operators SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus  as well as vendors such as Samsung, LG, Nokia, Innowireless, HFR, FRTech, and Solid, plus Yonsei University, the Korea Institute for Intelligent Information Society Promotion, Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute and Korea Information and Communication Technology, among others.

“ORIA will participate in the planning and coordination of the government’s O-RAN R&D roadmap to contribute to the enhancement of domestic businesses’ technological competitiveness. Second, ORIA will take a leading role in domestic and international demonstration and interoperability verification projects, to generate new O-RAN demand. ORIA will also actively engage in the establishment of an international certification system and standardization process for O-RAN equipment, thereby creating a foundation for entering the global market, and assist Korea in becoming a leading nation in O-RAN technologies and products,” the Ministry said.

“Amidst intensifying global technological competition surrounding communication networks, O-RAN is gaining attention as a key element for taking the higher ground in this competition. Through ORIA, we aim to create a collaborative and mutually beneficial ecosystem among the public and private sectors, as well as large businesses and SMEs,” said minister Lee Jong-ho.

“We also look forward to proactive engagementinternational cooperation in O-RAN technology and standardization, which will expand the outreach of Korea in terms of cooperation in advanced technologies in general,” the official added.

O-RAN revenues are forecasted to account for more than 15% of the global RAN market by 2027, as the market is experiencing a slower growth than initially projected, according to a recent report by Dell’Oro Group.

Dell’Oro has revised downwards its overall estimate of the growth of O-RAN. Following three years of O-RAN revenues accelerating at a significantly faster pace than expected and multiple upward forecast adjustments, this is the first downward forecast revision since the firm started tracking O-RAN, reflecting some hesitancy about the next-generation architectures.

The research firm noted that what is complicating the analysis is the fact that O-RAN adoption has been mixed across the greenfield and the brownfield operators. With greenfield and early adopter brownfield deployments maturing, the reality the industry is now facing is that it will take some time for the other segments to match and offset the more stable trends with the early adopters, according to Dell’Oro.

The study also showed that the cumulative O-RAN revenues have been revised downward by 5-10% through the forecast period.