2023 was an eventful year for the global adoption of Open RAN. As solutions mature, a key industry target is to enable of multi-vendor open RAN integration by certification and badging. A global coalition of tier-1 operators picks up the challenge to jointly define improved certification frameworks that will create value for the global operator community, building on and advancing the initial frameworks set up by O-RAN Alliance and Telecom Infra Project (TIP). 
The i14y Lab expands on that with a deep-dive into the badging and certification at the lab, sharing its learnings and improvements made to test plans according to operators’ deployment needs.


Open RAN: Global MNO coalition to progress certification maturity for multivendor integration

Francisco (Paco) Martín Pignatelli is a Vodafone Executive +24 years of Experience in Mobile. He´s worked internationally in various Global positions in US and UK and has great breadth of experience in all Network domains as well as some customer facing positions. He´s more recently focused in OPEN RAN, an activity he leads in Vodafone as Head of OPEN RAN, an effort he pioneered in 2016 that´s grown to become the most relevant trend in mobile today, with Vodafone as one of the leading promoters. Paco is Alternate Board Member of the ORAN Alliance.

Francisco Martín Pignatelli

Franz is Vice President and executive lead for “Access Disaggregation” at Deutsche Telekom Group’s “Technology Architecture and Innovation” unit. In his role he is in charge to drive the development and implementation of innovative, flexible and efficient network architectures for DT, covering both fixed and mobile networks; nowadays Franz has a very strong focus on open RAN, leading DT’s efforts to develop it towards a competitive deployable solution.

Prior to this role, Franz held various management positions in the area of mobile core network, infrastructure cloud and mobile network architecture in DT headquarters. Besides other tasks, he was deeply involved in definition, standardisation and introduction of 4G and 5G as well as Network Function Virtualisation (NFV).

Franz Seiser2022

Franz Seiser 2024

Franz Seiser

Executive Tribe Lead for Access Disaggregation, Deutsche Telekom AG

Kristian Toivo is the Executive Director of Telecom Infra Project (TIP) since June 1, 2022. TIP is a US-based globally operating non-profit organization, the mission of which is to accelerate the development and deployment of open, disaggregated, and standards-based technology solutions that deliver the high-quality connectivity that the world needs – now and in the decades to come.

Kristian joined TIP following a 30-year career at Ericsson, and most recently from ATOS IT Services, where he was Global Client Executive.

Kristian started his career at Ericsson, where he held a range of roles including Managing Director Ericsson Eurolab GmbH and Head of Development Unit Core Networks, Head of R&D Finland, and Head of Customer Unit for a leading operator customer. He subsequently was CEO of Zenterio, a Swedish TV & Media technology company, before joining Atos in 2020.

Kristian Toivo 2024

Kristian Toivo

Executive Director, Telecom Infra Project (TIP)

Andreas Gladisch is with Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom and currently the consortium lead of the i14y Lab. He was previously in charge as VP of "Emerging Technologies ” at Group Technology and prior to that VP Convergent Networks at Deutsche Telekom Innovation Laboratories, which concentrated on fixed mobile convergence and on convergence of IT and networks. Now his work is concentrated on making network disaggregation a reality.

Andreas Gladisch 2024

Andreas Gladisch

Senior Architect, Deutsche Telekom, and Consortium Lead i14 Lab

Dr. Ian Wong is Director of RF and Wireless Architecture at VIAVI, where he leads wireless technology strategy, architectures, and standards.  He is co-chair of the Test and Integration Focus Group and editor of the End-to-end test specifications in the O-RAN ALLIANCE.  He is a senior member of the IEEE and co-author of Open RAN: The Definitive Guide and Resource Allocation in Multiuser Multicarrier Wireless Systems.

Ian Wong 2024

Ian Wong, Ph.D.

Director of RF and Wireless, VIAVI; Co-chair, Test and Integration Focus Group, O-RAN

Jonas Charaf, a Senior Open RAN Technical Lead at Capgemini Engineering. Specializing in 5G Open RAN performance, QoS, and sustainability. Jonas leverages form his previous expertise as a 5G researcher at Deutsche Telekom where he focused on cutting-edge topics and contributed to EU projects such as 5GMoNArch. Throughout his career, Jonas's impactful work is evidenced by tangible results, including patents and research papers.

Jonas Charaf 2024

Jonas Charaf

Senior Open RAN Technical Lead, CapGemini, Consortium Partner i14y Lab

Adam Loddeke leads the forward-looking RAN Architecture team within AT&T. His focus is the enhancement of RAN roadmap to support RAN transformation on 3 domains – management, control, and user plane entities. He is responsible for defining the Cloud RAN solution and new technology introduction pipelines for RAN solutions with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) enablement, leveraging innovation from Open RAN for evolution of the RICs and other network elements.
Prior to his current role, Adam led the Wireless Architecture & Planning team focused on RAN and Wi-Fi hardware and software planning. He also led the North Texas Market RAN Engineering team supporting capacity planning, design, and performance/optimization.
Adam has over twenty years of experience working in various RAN architecture and engineering roles. He is based out of Dallas, TX.

Adam Loddeke 2024

Adam Loddeke

Assistant Vice President - Radio Access Network (RAN) Technology, AT&T Services, Inc.

UK-based Ray was appointed Editorial Director at TelecomTV in April 2020. He has been an editor and journalist covering the telecoms sector for more than 25 years, and has been reporting on telco cloud and virtualisation developments for more than a decade. 

Ray Le Maistre

Arda Akman is Senior Director of Software Engineering, leading RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) product management and RIC architecture activities in Juniper CTO Office. He is a very active O-RAN member, leads Juniper O-RAN delegation, co-chair of WG1 Use Case Task Group and chair of WG1 Slicing Task Group. Arda has 25+ years of R&D and software engineering background and holds 30+ patents in 4G/5G and Network Slicing areas

Sr. Director of Software Engineering, 5G Team, Juniper Networks

Arda Akman

Sessions where Arda Akman takes part

Open RAN: Global MNO coalition to progress certification maturity for multivendor integration