369joy

Going entirely off my intuition here. The incentives don't seem aligned for either to agree to a ceasefire. Internal Israeli politics, popular opinion, and a looming Trump presidency don't seem to help the situation.

Increased percentages because of the resolution date being further in the future than I realized.

It seems like generic O-RAN certification isn’t as important as satisfying particular companies’ specifications based on the deal between AT&T and Ericsson. [1] It may be the case that large US companies aren't as concerned with certification since they seek single-vendor deals.

To see which North American centers offer testing, can check the interactive map. https://map.o-ran.org/ 

[1] https://www.fierce-network.com/wireless/whats-att-and-its-multi-vendor-open-ran-strategy

Few reporting agencies present an optimistic view [1] of the possibility that he will step down, while most are predicting his continuation [2] [3].

[1] https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/maduro-venezuela-election/

[2] https://www.latintimes.com/maduros-campaign-ready-sign-agreement-opposition-venezuelas-election-results-554880

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/world/americas/venezuela-election-maduro.html 

I approached this question first from a qualitative assessment and then used the base rates given by other forecasters to anchor my estimate. Thus, I explored the following questions:

Which American providers are associated with O-RAN but have not been certified yet?

In the introductory video at https://www.o-ran.org/about, they display logos of several US companies, yet they are not listed as certified. These companies have activities related to ORAN:

Verizon has deployed ORAN compliant radios without certification [1] 

US Cellular is part of the O-RAN ALLIANCE [2]

Dish Wireless received a US grant to open the Open RAN Center for Integration & Deployment (ORCID) [3], and Dish, supported by Samsung, is launching an ORAN-compliant 5G network [4]

AT&T has partnered with Ericsson to launch a 5G network [5]

How many OTICs out of the total operate in North America?

This has been covered by other forecasters, but many of the North American facilities do not offer certificates. Here is an overview of the focus of each facility:

North American OTIC in the Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle Park Area (AERPAW): “At this time, the lab setup is under development, and no certificates or badges can be offered presently. AERPAW OTIC expects to support certification services in 1.a, 1.b, 1.c, and IOT badging services in 2.a, 2.b, by May 15, 2024.” https://www.o-ran.org/otics/north-american-otic-in-the-raleigh-durham-research-triangle-park-area-aerpaw 

North American OTIC in the Boston Area (UNH-IOL): “The UNH-IOL plans to initially provide interoperability, and PlugFest testing services in the laboratory environments.” https://www.o-ran.org/otics/north-american-otic-in-the-boston-area-unh-iol

North American OTIC at MITRE: “The MITRE facilities will encourage increased collaboration between the North American OTICs and offer an open, collaborative, and impartial testing environment.” https://www.o-ran.org/otics/north-american-otic-at-mitre 

North American OTIC in Central Iowa (ARA): “ARA-OTIC also enables clients to conduct experiments in diverse agriculture and rural settings, ranging from state of the art crop and livestock farms to rural cities and including user equipment such as agriculture vehicles, robots, drones, sensors, as well as public safety vehicles and facilities. “ https://www.o-ran.org/otics/north-american-otic-ara

North American OTIC in Washington DC/Arlington VA (Virginia Tech): “The CCI xG Testbed has a campus-scale site intended to enable several new classes of wireless experiments not currently supported by testbeds available to the research community.” https://www.o-ran.org/otics/north-american-otic-in-washington-dc-virginia-tech

North American OTIC in Salt Lake City (POWDER): “POWDER provides E2E Badging and IOT Badging services. We expect the specific services to evolve over time as O-RAN specifications and test equipment/software mature.” https://www.o-ran.org/otics/north-american-otic-powder

North American OTIC in the Boston Area (Northeastern University): “The Open6G center is open to researchers in the wireless domain and is driving research and development in the Open RAN with several industry partners, national and international academic research labs, and government agencies. It combines… A complete suite of testing equipment, which allows the OTIC to evaluate the functionality of O-RAN devices and systems across all WGs. “ https://www.o-ran.org/otics/north-american-otic-in-the-boston-area-northeastern-university

North American OTIC in NYC Metro Area/East (COSMOS): “The North American OTIC in the NYC Metro Area is aimed at facilitating the design, development and deployment of a cloud-enhanced and open-software-defined wireless technologies, and provides multiple testbeds in order to support real-world experimentation on next-generation wireless technologies and applications.” https://www.o-ran.org/otics/north-american-otic-in-nyc-metro-area-east-cosmos 

Apparently, as another forecaster commented, only Virginia Tech, AERPAW, and Northeastern University offer certificates.

What is the bottleneck in adopting ORAN?

A LightReading article [6] describes how adopting ORAN does not necessarily result in interoperability, and that transforming existing technologies to be ORAN compliant is a significant task. Thus, I think that a single vendor selling ORAN compliant hardware (radio units (RUs)) and software (distributed units (DUs)) together to an American telecommunications company would be the most likely scenario to result in the adoption of ORAN. Then, there is the question of whether or not this company will seek certification from an OTIC. Based on the fact that most OTIC facilities in North America are focused on R&D services, it seems that ORAN adoption is still in its early stages. Thus, I take an overall skeptical view on the certification of this technology within the year, as I believe it to be more unlikely than not that this question resolves to yes.

I agree with efosong’s base rate using “companies seeking certification” as the bottleneck, but I think it is likely for some reason that most US companies cannot be categorized as equally ready for ORAN certification as those in other countries. Thus, the 90% estimate seems high. I would like to perform further research on this issue and create an updated base rate in the future.

[1] https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/verizon-confirms-it-has-deployed-130000-open-ran-capable-radios-within-network/

[2] https://www.lightreading.com/virtualization/u-s-cellular-joins-o-ran-alliance

[3] https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/dish-wireless-seals-50m-grant-for-open-ran-center/ 

[4] https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/samsung-supports-dish-wireless-vran-5g-network-launch/ 

[5] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/att/att-progresses-open-ran-push-with-tip-board-move/ 

[6] https://www.lightreading.com/open-ran/open-ran-and-its-multivendor-misfortunes 

For this question, I considered:

• What is the base rate for the duration of an ambassador recall?

https://www.smh.com.au/world/recalled-ambassador-to-indonesia-paul-grigson-returns-to-australia-20150503-1mz2qr.html

“[I]n 2013, Indonesia recalled its ambassador to Australia… for six months.”

https://www.france24.com/en/20190215-france-italy-diplomacy-recalled-french-ambassador-return-rome-friday 

~ 1 month recall of French ambassador from Italy in 2019

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180924-south-african-ambassador-returns-to-israel/ 

“The South African ambassador returned to Israel this weekend, four months after he was recalled”

• What events occur to allow an ambassador’s return? What is the signal that these events have taken place?

I examined a small case between Iraq and Turkey.

https://www.euronews.com/2016/10/05/iraq-and-turkey-recall-ambassadors-as-tension-mounts-over-bashiqa-base 

May 10, 2016, the Turkish ambassador from Baghdad recalled. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-turkey-abadi-idUSKBN14R0D4/ 

Reports of a compromise being negotiated (January 8, 2017)

https://www.dailysabah.com/diplomacy/2017/01/16/iraqi-ambassador-to-ankara-hisham-al-alawi-positive-developments-expected-in-2017-in-iraq-turkey-relations

More talks of diplomacy (January 16, 2017)

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/iraqs-ambassador-to-turkey-hisham-ali-akbar-ibrahim-al-news-photo/631455946 

Iraqi ambassador to Turkey photographed in Ankara (January 11, 2017)

• Conclusion

It seems that recalls last from days to months, with over a year being unusual (another forecaster linked this thesis, which also provides some recall durations: https://dlib.bc.edu/islandora/object/bc-ir:107381/datastream/PDF/view). The Iraqi ambassador has been absent from Tehran for almost 6 months, and it seems there has not been a serious effort to normalize relations since then. Other regional tensions have likely taken priority. As such, I would expect a continuation of the status quo for the time being.