Our Story

The ETSI Software Development Group OpenOP (SDG OOP) is developing an open-source Operator Platform for the Telco Cloud, aligned with GSMA requirements for seamless inter-operator federation, supporting developer-friendly network exposure (LF CAMARA) and leveraging 3GPP for mobile and AI/ML capabilities.

What do we do?

ETSI Software Development Group OpenOP is developing an open source Operator Platform for the Telco Cloud, aligned with GSMA requirements to ensure seamless interconnection of testbed networks. Initiated by a strong R&D community in the Telco domain (B5G/6G), OpenOP is fostering a fertile ground for future-proof innovation and collaboration among developers, practitioners and researchers in the field of Telco network abstraction, federation and exposure to verticals via developer-friendly APIs including LF CAMARA and leveraging 3GPP standards for mobile network and AI/ML enablement.

OpenOP is committed to being interoperable and complementary to other significant initiatives within ETSI, such as ETSI MEC, NFV, OSM, OpenSlice, OpenCAPIF and TeraFlowSDN, as well as to global initiatives beyond ETSI such as GSMA, Linux Foundation CAMARA and 3GPP via actively liaising with relevant groups.

Where did we come from?

OpenOP was conceived by an R&D community, balanced between industry and academia, and heavily involved in innovative and ambitious EU projects within the sphere of next generation Telecom systems (B5G/6G). The OpenOP founding team made two apparent observations about next-generation telco platforms that lay the foundations for initiating this SDG. Firstly, a remarkable hyper-convergence between technological domains in the realm of the Telco Cloud, calling for solutions to bridge innovations in Telecom, Cloud and AI and to exploit synergies thereof. Secondly, the high complexity of inclusion of vertical apps-oriented stakeholders in the telco ecosystem, motivating the proper standardized abstractions for them to gain seamless access to a heterogeneous “network of networks”.

Driven by the above and confirming during the ETSI SNS4SNS event in 2024 that there is no open-source implementation of the GSMA Operator Platform that could tackle many of these open issues, the founding team decided to implement one for developers, practitioners and researchers, having as a significant starting point the implemented Platform of Flagship EU Research project SUNRISE-6G for the federation of 15 6G/B5G test infrastructures in a pan-European facility.