O-RAN Alliance

In telecommunications, the O-RAN Alliance is an industry consortium defining open, interoperable RAN interfaces and architectures, including the disaggregation of CU, DU, and RU and the introduction of the RIC. Its specifications complement 3GPP and aim to enable multi-vendor radio deployments.

Categories: Radio Access NetworkProtocols and StandardsCloud and Virtualization

O-RAN Alliance in context

The radio access network is where mobile devices attach to the operator's infrastructure. Attacks in this layer include IMSI catching, rogue base stations and downgrade attacks; defenses rest on mutual authentication, integrity-protected signaling and Open RAN supply-chain hygiene.

Telecom security is written into standards from 3GPP, GSMA, ETSI, IETF and ITU-T. Understanding which body owns which specification, and how they interlock, is essential for both design and audit work.

To place O-RAN Alliance in the wider telecom-security picture, review CU/DU/RU Split, 5GNR, 6G, ADSL, Cloud RAN and Data Localization — each entry cross-references back to this page so you can walk the topic in either direction.

Related terms

More from the TelcoSec Glossary

Browse the full TelcoSec Glossary, the Ultimate Guide to Mobile Network Security, or the P1 Arsenal of telecom-security tools.