EchoStar said that the new O-RAN facility is housed at the company’s data center in Cheyenne

EchoStar Corporation announced the launch of the Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID), a state-of-the-art Open RAN (O-RAN) testing and evaluation lab.

The company said that the new O-RAN facility is housed at EchoStar’s data center in  Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The O-RAN center, which is supported by a $50 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund, offers vendors the opportunity to test and validate O-RAN solutions using EchoStar’s live, commercial-grade, cloud-native Open RAN network.

“The Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID) is now open for business. We appreciate the trust and partnership of NTIA in this effort, which includes a historic $50 million grant from the Innovation Fund,” said Charlie Ergen, co-founder and chairman of EchoStar. “ORCID represents a significant milestone in both EchoStar and the U.S.’s journey to drive and lead the adoption of open and interoperable radio access networks. We look forward to the groundbreaking advancements expected to emerge from this initiative.”

The company noted that the launch of ORCID provides trusted participants in the U.S. and around the world an opportunity to contribute to the development, deployment and adoption of open and interoperable standards-based radio access networks. ORCID’s lab features a real field test setup, which will help drive the O-RAN ecosystem from the lab to commercial deployment.

“We encourage vendors interested in advancing the future of Open RAN technology to reach out and see how to participate in ORCID,” said Ravinder Jarral, VP of 5G wireless partner engagement and delivery and head of the ORCID program at EchoStar. “By partnering with ORCID, vendors can achieve substantial cost savings, faster time-to-market, improved quality of service, and rigorous validation for their O-RAN solutions.”

EchoStar manages the ORCID consortium, which includes Fujitsu, Mavenir, VMware by Broadcom and a variety of other technology partners.

EchoStar said it has already validated O-RAN technology at scale across the U.S., building an O-RAN 5G network that provides connectivity to more than 240 million people across the country.