TIP was founded by Facebook (now Meta) as a community of telecom network industry players to foster a collaborative ecosystem approach to accelerate the development and adoption of open, disaggregated, standards-based networks with an initial focus on developing or underserved markets. TIP’s scope spans radio access, transport, core and services; most notable has been TIP’s championing of Open RAN and open virtualised software-based network infrastructure platforms.

Early ecosystem engagement and impact was delivered by a number of plugfest events. The development of “TIP Blueprints” and the establishment of 17 TIP Community Labs worldwide further builds on this momentum to collaboratively test and deploy open disaggregated networks; two such labs are based in the UK:

• London, UK, sponsored by Facebook
• Adastral Park, Ipswich, UK, sponsored by BT

TIP’s Test & Validation programme provides three levels of ‘badges’ and two levels of ‘ribbons’, depending on the maturity of the solution, who tested it and in which lab.

Vodafone and Telefonica are both notable for their strong and early level of engagement with TIP; they have worked with TIP to attract and engage tech suppliers and integrators, formulate and run RFI activities, share information and carry out integration design and integration testing in labs and plugfests. 

The O-RAN Alliance and TIP in 2020 announced a liaison agreement, that aims to ensure further alignment in the development of interoperable open RAN solutions.