Open Source for 5G strives to increase interoperability, reduce cost and establish broader business ecosystems

BELLEVUE, Wash. – February 21, 2019 – 5G Americas, the industry trade association and voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas, today announced the publication of The Status of Open Source for 5G. ** This 5G Americas white paper provides an overview of 5G architecture, with a focus on its application of open source principles, based on 3GPP Release 15-defined 5G system architecture.

“Mobile operators worldwide are pioneering both 5G and Open Source technologies by leading the standards organizations and community-driven projects,” stated Chris Pearson, President of 5G Americas. “Mobile operators have begun deploying the solutions produced by various projects to demonstrate the benefits of Open Source for 5G.”

The Status of Open Source for 5G covers key aspects such as:

• Open Source Model

• Provides different license types and importance of governance models

• Compares similarities and differences between the standards and open source models

• 5G Architecture

• Gives a high-level overview of the 5G system architecture per 3GPP Release 15

• Open Source Applicability in 5G

• Discusses the opportunities in open sourcing key areas of the 5G system architectures and network infrastructure

• References existing open source efforts in the respective areas

This paper is intended to serve as a call to action for the 5G community of operators, solution providers and developers, to participate in the existing open source efforts applicable to 5G, or initiate new ones, in areas such as ‘Infrastructure’ and ‘Management and Control’ where the 5G ecosystem will likely benefit the most.

Community involvement is important to help achieve critical backing of the projects to avoid one-off solutions.

“Different operators have different strategic technical plans for the evolution of their networks to 5G. Each operator environment is unique and there is no single open source effort that caters to the needs of all operators,” stated Lyle Bertz, Director - Core & Services, Technology Innovation & Architecture at Sprint and a co-leader of the white paper working group. “5G system architecture gives mobile operators much more openness than ever before; and operators and OEMs can leverage open source principles to benefit competitively in the marketplace.”

The Status of Open Source for 5G white paper was written by co-leaders Lyle Bertz from Sprint and Bejoy Pankajakshan of Mavenir as well as representatives from member companies on 5G Americas’ Board of Governors who participated in the development of this report. The white paper is available for free download on the association’s website 5gamericas.org.