NEC says it’s still early innings in the open radio access network (RAN) game, but that operators will need integration help to get the most benefit from what the technology can provide. Oh, and it just acquired a firm that can do that.

NEC has been a long-time player in the open RAN space, having been part of numerous commercial deployments and network trials. This has allowed the vendor to see where carriers are struggling in terms of integrating multiple vendors into their RAN plans.

“This is not easy stuff,” Rahul Chandra, CEO and President of NEC’s Blue Danube Systems, said in an interview with SDxCentral. “There's a lot of moving parts and it's not something that is one and done. You have to maintain and manage the lifecycle of these parts.”

Chandra was recently tapped to head NEC’s Blue Danube Systems division, following NEC’s acquisition of the U.S.-based vendor earlier this year.

NEC has been working with Japan’s Rakuten Mobile on that carrier’s 5G open RAN deployment that has seen ongoing integration challenges. It’s had a much more limited partnership with U.S.-based Dish Network on that carrier’s challenging 5G network launch, which the carrier attributed to integration issues.

“We’re six months behind where we thought we’d be, and it’s my fault,” Dish chair and co-founder Charlie Ergen said on the company’s fourth-quarter of 2021 earnings call. “We just didn’t maybe anticipate that we would have to do as much on the technical side.”

Chandra noted that Dish Network was unique in how it approached its network deployment.

“They're a greenfield and yet they took on the challenge of integrating all of these moving parts by themselves,” Chandra said. “I was actually surprised by it. I think a lot of us were surprised that they are taking that strategy.”

Chandra, instead, thinks operators will look toward a systems integrator (SI) to help manage their open RAN deployments. “There's certainly value in having an SI, especially somebody who is part of the stack,” he said.

NEC bolstered its SI efforts by acquiring Aspire Technology for an undisclosed amount. The Ireland-based firm was founded by former Ericsson engineers in 2010, and provides consulting and network integration services to operators, with a focus on open RAN products.

“The strong capabilities and the deep pool of talented engineers at Aspire Technology, combined with their portfolio of technology solutions and applications, is a big step forward for our NEC Open Networks strategy,” noted NEC 5G GM Naohisa Matsuda, in a statement on the deal. “NEC is now better prepared than any supplier to integrate disaggregated network components into a well-tuned ecosystem."

The deal comes during a potential inflection point for open RAN vendors.

Qualcomm last month acquired Israel-based Cellwize Wireless Technologies in a move to provide service management and orchestration to open RAN deployments.

However, more recently, Parallel Wireless slashed its workforce in a move that analysts said highlighted the competitive nature of the business.

“Clearly this is a sign that the Open RAN market, with all its potential, is a tough one for small vendors,” Paolini wrote in an email to SDxCentral tied to the Parallel Wireless news. “This is not surprising; it is always the case with innovative startups in any technology. … And in this case as in other cases it is because there is a market potential that gets realized less quickly than many anticipated. Open RAN is a major change in the way we build and operate networks and as such it will take time to become widely deployed. For tier-one vendors, this may even be an advantage (more time to adapt). For small vendors, it is a real challenge. Consolidation has started already (e.g., Altiostar) and will continue. The RAN – in particular – is a very difficult market segment for small vendors. No matter how open the interfaces are, no matter how disaggregated networks can be, operators will try to keep a limited number of suppliers and continue to prefer large ones for most of their networks to protect their investment.”