Institute for Telecommunication Sciences / Research / 5G / IORS / 2026.03 IORS

IORS Virtual Meeting, March 26 2026

3GPP and O-RAN ALLIANCE Coordination

The race toward 6G and AI-native networks has made coordination between 3GPP and the O-RAN Alliance more critical (and more complicated) than ever before.

While incremental progress on Open Fronthaul integration has been achieved in recent 3GPP meetings, the broader suite of O-RAN interfaces that operators and vendors depend on still lacks the formal standardization recognition needed to fully unlock open, multi-vendor network deployments in both 5G and 6G.

Layered on top of this is the rapid rise of AI-native radio access network (RAN), which fundamentally reframes the RAN not merely as a connectivity infrastructure but as an intelligent, autonomous platform — and raises urgent questions about whether today's standards processes are structured and agile enough to keep pace.

This session brings together government policy, government technical experts, and industry leaders with standards body experience for an honest conversation about where coordination is working, where it is breaking down, and what it will take to get it right.

Logistics

• Speakers:
  • Alex Jinsung Choi, Softbank, Chair of AI-RAN ALLIANCE
  • Dan Henry, NTIA
  • Shariq Ashfaq, NTIA
  • Lauriston Hardin, NTIA
• Date: March 26, 2026 
  • 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. MT  
• Attend online:
  • Register on this Google Sheet to receive connection information.
  • Remote attendance is open US Foreign assistance eligible countries.
  • Registration will close 2 weeks before the event.
  • Your name will be kept on the registration list from one IORS virtual event to the next. 
• Watch later:
  • A temporary meeting recording will be shared with all registered attendees, for those in different time-zones.
  • Create a free account on the Consumer Digital Video Library (CDVL, www.cdvl.org) and inform iors@ntia.gov.
  • We will grant your CDVL account permission to download the video recordings from an IORS members only section of CDVL.  

If you have questions, contact us directly at iors@ntia.gov.

Agenda

Speaker	Time	Topic
Julie Kub, NTIA	5 minutes	Introduction IORS virtual meeting
Lauriston Hardin, NTIA	10 minutes	Introduction to AI RAN, future of network substrate
Dan Henry, NTIA	15 minutes	Introduction to 3GPP
Shariq Ashfaq, NTIA	10 minutes	Introduction to O-RAN ALLIANCE
Alex Jinsung Choi, Softbank, Chair of AI-RAN ALLIANCE	20 minutes	Introduction to AI RAN ALLIANCE
Lauriston Hardin, NTIA, moderator Dan Henry, NTIA Shariq Ashfaq, NTIA Alex Jinsung Choi, Softbank, Chair of AI-RAN ALLIANCE	45 minutes	Panel discussion
	15 minutes	Open discussion