PAWR, the Platform for Advanced Wireless Research, a US based initiative focused on experimental deployments of 5G networks, today announced joining the OpenAirInterface Software Alliance as Strategic Member.

The Alliance is delighted to welcome PAWR, its first strategic member from the North American continent! PAWR is a consortium funded by the National Science Foundation, USA and industrial members. This partnership opens up a new set of linkages for the Alliance at the same time as strengthening its presence in the United States of America. The experimental platforms that PAWR supports (details hereunder) deploy 5G test networks in a spirit similar to deployments of the OpenAirInterface at its home site at EURECOM, the Alliance’s founding member. PAWR and the Alliance are pursuing many common goals which makes the former’s presence on the OSA board a great step forward for both parties.

Abhimanyu (Manu) Gosain the PAWR board member at the Alliance quotes Aristotle …“The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts.”

Manu continues, “As a global leader among open source mobile networking solution providers, the mission of the OSA aligns with that of PAWR, and as such a strategic relationship benefits both parties. The PAWR Project Office (PPO) sees OSA and its initiatives as key building blocks for its community of users; both academic and industrial. As a mutual benefit, this relationship strengthens the R&D linkages across the global research community and grows the pool of OSA users advancing scientific research and developing novel technologies. The respective communities, which overlap somewhat , also get a boost by increasing OSA-PAWR interaction points at joint workshop venues that will result in increased tangible outputs.”

About PAWR

PAWR is funded by the USA National Science Foundation (NSF) and the PAWR Industry Consortium representing 28 of the nation’s leading companies and associations in wireless. The PAWR Project Office (PPO) is managing this $100 million public-private partnership to deploy and manage up to 4 city-scale research testbeds. PAWR has awarded two platforms in 2018; COSMOS (NYU, Rutgers) and POWDER-RENEW (Utah, Rice). These platforms push the envelope for testing major new functions (5G and Beyond) for both wireless and cloud environments by leveraging cutting edge radio hardware, network and compute with a fully integrated software framework,including large open source efforts from groups such as OpenAirInterface Software Alliance (OSA).

PAWR will enable experimental exploration of robust new wireless devices, communication techniques, networks, systems, and services that will revolutionize the wireless ecosystem.