Recent moves by EchoStar, AT&T, and Verizon could provide a boost for the languishing open radio access network (RAN) market.

EchoStar and AT&T made the most ambitious move when the two decided to offload their flailing satellite-TV offerings onto private equity firm TPG. That deal, if approved, would see AT&T’s DirecTV business acquire EchoStar’s Dish Network satellite-TV service for $1, but also assume $10 billion in debt, and sell that combined entity to TPG for a total net payment of $7.6 billion.

EchoStar also worked out other refinancing deals with TPG that will see it ditch $7 billion in debt and provide EchoStar with $5.5 billion in new financing that CEO Hamid Akhavan said it would “invest in our mobile business and continue to build and enhance our nationwide 5G open RAN network.” Those deals removed the immediate financial time bomb that has been sitting front and center at EchoStar.

Akhavan’s network investment comments are tied into a recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval of an EchoStar request to modify its spectrum license and coverage requirements. The carrier now has more favorable conditions to hit coverage requirements for some of its spectrum licenses.

EchoStar’s innovative 5G open RAN deployment has consumed billions of dollars, with Chairman Charlie Ergen at one point stating it would cost the carrier up to $10 billion to complete its network build. However, the carrier has been slashing its spending plans in order to conserve precious capital.

With the new financing secured and statements from company management that it will be investing some of those funds into its network, EchoStar’s open RAN investment is set to increase. The carrier is relying on dozens of vendors to provide its network components, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Samsung, Cisco, Dell Technologies, Nokia, VMware, Mavenir, and Oracle, all of which could be set to benefit.

AT&T is also set to benefit from unloading its DirecTV business.

The deal itself was a tough financial hit for the carrier, which initially acquired that business for $67 billion (including debt) in 2015. However, DirecTV has since been losing value, with AT&T offloading a minority interest in the business to TPG in early 2021 as part of a broader re-focusing by AT&T’s management.

AT&T is now focused on its fixed and wireless network business, which includes ongoing investments in fiber and a big push toward deploying open RAN technology. AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches during the carrier’s most recent earnings call stated that it remained on track to spend up to $22 billion this year on total capex, “with higher spending in the back half of the year as we ramp our wireless network modernization. ”

AT&T recently started deploying Ericsson’s Cloud RAN technology on its commercial 5G network at a location south of Dallas. This involved migrating one of AT&T’s C-band frequencies to the Cloud RAN infrastructure, which is now supporting commercial traffic.

AT&T and Ericsson also completed a test call across the commercial Cloud RAN infrastructure and stated “third-party vendors will be able to use this configuration for open RAN in the future.” AT&T has provided a goal of having 70% of its wireless network traffic flowing through its open RAN platform by the end of 2026.

Verizon has a new pro-open RAN CTO

Verizon’s move was more subtle but could have a bigger impact.

The carrier named Santiago Tenorio as CTO and SVP of the carrier’s new strategy and technology enablement division that will materialize with Tenorio coming on board on Oct. 28. Tenorio’s position will report into Joe Russo, who is EVP and president of Verizon’s Global Network and Technology operations.

Tenorio had previously spent 25 years at European-based telecom giant Vodafone, where he more recently headed up that carrier’s ambitious open RAN, cloud networking, and network API work. The executive has been a long-time proponent of these open and cloud-based initiatives.

That view could speed Verizon’s efforts in the open RAN space.

Verizon has been more cautious on rolling out open RAN technology than AT&T, with Russo telling SDxCentral last year that the carrier was waiting on greater open RAN ecosystem maturity.

“At this point, what I typically say is we’re doing a lot of testing; we’re very interested in what that comes to be, but we don’t see it today at scale,” Russo said during last year’s MWC Las Vegas event. “It’s not to say that it won’t be at some point, but I think there’s a lot of roads in front of us on the [open RAN] space, so we’ll see how that evolves.”

Russo did note that some of the bigger open RAN challenges remain around interoperability, software, the ability to scale, and performance.

“We have very high-performance standards on the Verizon network when it comes to voice, when it comes to data, when it comes to getting on the network, staying on the network and being able to do what you have to do. Generally, you know, it’s a pretty high bar if you’re going to work inside of the Verizon network,” Russo said. “It’s been a challenge to make sure that those performance levels are met. … It’s early. I’m not saying that we’re not interested in it. I certainly will see where it takes us.”

Despite the hesitancy, Verizon earlier this year did cop to having deployed more than 130,000 open RAN “capable” radios that are compatible with specifications from the O-RAN Alliance. These radios include massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology.

“Verizon is fully supportive of O-RAN technology and is focused on commercializing an operationally sound O-RAN architecture,” Adam Koeppe, SVP of technology planning at Verizon, noted. “Our commitment to developing O-RAN standards and to deploying compliant equipment in our active radio access network is helping to drive the industry forward which will result in a variety of tangible benefits for our customers who expect leading-edge technology from Verizon.”

All of these moves come as the open RAN market is starting to gain some momentum after years of malaise.

Dell’Oro Group recently predicted that open RAN equipment will account for more than 25% of the total worldwide RAN market by 2028. North America is expected to lead that growth, with the overall open RAN share predicted to be as high as 40% of the total RAN market when taking early adopter China out of that equation.

Analysys Mason has a more robust long-term forecast, predicting open RAN and virtualized RAN (vRAN) architectures will account for more than 70% of segment vendor revenues by 2030.