What if wireless communication were as open as the internet itself?

DECT NR+ is a radio standard for industry, building automation, and professional audio — standardized by the European standards organization ETSI and officially recognized as a 5G technology by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-R) since October 2021.

A radio standard describes how devices communicate with one another. Turning that into actual products requires software that implements the standard: a protocol stack. That is precisely what has been missing as a freely available implementation. Anyone wanting to use DECT NR+ depends on closed solutions from individual vendors — and is tied to that vendor.

This holds back exactly those who need innovation most: start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, and research teams.

So we are building what is missing.

Two things drive this, related, but with distinct roles:

OpenDECT-X is a publicly funded research project. Financed by the German Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space, it has a defined duration and a fixed consortium spanning academia, the audio industry, and chip development. Its task: to build the foundations — concepts, architecture, first implementation.

The OPENER Initiative is the open community that turns this into a stack with lasting value. It is not bound to the project timeline and is open to anyone who wants to contribute.

Each needs the other: without public funding, the foundation would not exist, because no single company has an interest in building an open solution for everyone. Without the community, the result would remain a project report.

Our goal: not just to call for technological sovereignty, but to build it.

In the coming weeks, we will introduce the people behind this work — and show you how to get involved.