The winners of a 36 million competition to fund innovative R&D projects across the UK to develop open RAN technology have been revealed by DCMS.
The 15 winning consortiums in the Future Radio Access Network Competition (FRANC) will develop technical solutions - such as radio transmitters, signal processing equipment, power management systems and the software - required to roll out open RAN solutions across the UK quickly and attract new home-grown telecoms suppliers to the 5G supply chain.
Matthew Evans, Director of Markets at techUK, said:
Today's announcement of the successful FRANC bids is testament to the role our tech and telecoms sector can play in preparing and empowering the UK's networks for future prosperity and security. It is a clear indication of the talent, expertise and innovation the UK can offer the global telecoms market.
While more can be done to accelerate the commercialisation of UK innovation in advanced connectivity, opportunities like FRANC show the willingness of our tech companies, SMEs and academic community in helping deliver the long-term aspirations of secure, resilient, open and disaggregated networks.
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