5G TERMS AND ACRONYMS

O-RAN

What is O-RAN? O-RAN (hyphenated) specifically refers to the technical architecture and specifications produced by the O-RAN Alliance (founded 2018 by AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche

O-RU / O-DU / O-CU

What is O-RU / O-DU / O-CU? O-RU, O-DU, and O-CU are the O-RAN compliant versions of the Radio Unit, Distributed Unit, and Centralised Unit

OAM Operations, Administration and Maintenance

This term refers to the procedures and functions involved in provisioning and managing a network or its components.

OBW – Occupied bandwidth

What is OBW? OBW (Occupied Bandwidth) is a spectrum measurement that defines the frequency bandwidth containing 99% of the total integrated mean power of the

OFDM – Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing

What is OFDM? OFDM is the multicarrier modulation technique at the heart of 4G LTE and 5G NR. It divides a wideband channel into hundreds

Open RAN

What is Open RAN? Open RAN is the movement to replace traditional closed, single-vendor RAN architectures with open, standardised interfaces between RAN components (RU, DU,

OQAM – Offset quadrate amplitude modulation

What is OQAM? OQAM (Offset QAM) is a digital modulation technique that staggers the in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) components of a QAM signal by

OTA – Over-the-air

What is OTA? Over-the-Air (OTA) testing evaluates the RF performance of wireless devices through the radio interface without physical cable connections. OTA testing is mandatory

P-OFDM – Pulse-shaped orthogonal frequency division multiplex

What is P-OFDM? P-OFDM (Pulse-Shaped OFDM) is a multicarrier modulation technique that applies pulse shaping to conventional OFDM waveforms to improve out-of-band emission characteristics while

PAPR – Peak to average power ratio

What is PAPR? PAPR (Peak to Average Power Ratio) is the ratio between the peak instantaneous power and the average power of a signal, typically

PCF – Policy control function

Element of the 3GPP core network architecture that provides policy rules to control plane functions.

PCF (Policy Control Function)

What is PCF? The PCF is the 5G Core network function providing a unified policy framework. It generates and delivers policy rules — covering QoS,

PCRF – Policy and Charging Rules Function

The PCRF is a policy decision point for subscriber data flows in the network. Using inputs from other network nodes, the PCRF will formulate rules

PDN-GW or P-GW (Packet Data Network Gateway)

What is PDN-GW / P-GW? The PDN-GW (also written P-GW) is a core network element in the 4G LTE Evolved Packet Core (EPC) that provides

PDP Context

A PDP (Packet Data Protocol) Context is a logical link between a Mobile Station (MS) and a Public Data Network (PDN) within a GPRS network.

PGW – Packet data network gateway

What is PGW? PGW is an abbreviated form of PDN Gateway (P-GW/PDN-GW), the equipment in the 4G LTE Evolved Packet Core that connects the LTE

Phased array antenna

What is Phased Array Antenna? A phased array antenna is an electronically steerable antenna system consisting of multiple radiating elements whose individual phase and amplitude

Physical Uplink Shared Channel

The E-UTRA PUSCH (Physical Uplink Shared Channel) serves as the primary uplink channel for transmitting the UL-SCH (Uplink Shared Channel) transport channel. It supports both