A group of independent analysts closed MWC Barcelona 2022 with a determination to uncouple open radio access network (RAN) hype from reality.
Open RAN represents a big market opportunity and many companies, including large IT infrastructure vendors, have a play there, Mike Thelander, president and founder of Signals Research Group, said at the event. However, the history of the wireless industry suggests consolidation is inevitable, and few companies will remain in command of the market, he added.
“Just because there's a rising tide, it doesn't mean it lifts all boats. And I think there's gonna be a challenge there for a lot of these companies. Yes, there's an open interface there, but their product has to work at the end of the day, and they have to be able to differentiate on things besides price,” Thelander said.
Open RAN vendors don’t need to be as good as the incumbents, but close in a lot of markets, he said. “I think it’s really kind of put-up-or-shut-up in a way at some point here, where we really want to see the stuff out in the field, kick its tires, and see how it performs.”
Rakuten Lacks 'Truest Definition of Open RAN'Dish Network’s 5G open RAN remains unavailable, at least commercially, so “that doesn’t really count,” and Rakuten Mobile has proven the technology can work in Japan, with caveats, according to Thelander.
“It's interesting. They're taking that model and they're applying it elsewhere. But again, it's their ecosystem, so it is not, I don't think it's the truest definition of open RAN per se,” he said. “You’re not going to take Rakuten Symphony and put it in your city and then put vendor B next to them who’s not part of that ecosystem. So you can call it open RAN if you want to, but I’m not sure that’s the vision the industry had when they first started talking about open RAN.”
Monica Paolini, founder and principal at Senza Fili, echoed that sentiment, adding that although there is an attempt to achieve openness at the equipment level, closure remains at a higher level under Rakuten Symphony’s model. That “kind of goes counter to the idea of having everything truly open,” she said.
Much of the industry expected open RAN to develop and gain adoption faster, but that’s common in the telecom industry, including the advancement of 5G and network virtualization, Paolini explained.
Analysts Assess Current LimitsOpen RAN represents a new way of thinking about RAN that goes beyond open interfaces, she said. “We need to look at it more in the long term. And in that sense, you can have an open RAN where it’s the same single vendor but you still use open interfaces.”
While that doesn’t realize the full vision of open RAN, “there is a value to that, in the sense that you decompose the problem, make it more manageable, and eventually you’re ready to have more vendors coming in,” Paolini explained.
“I think that that’s where we’re going. So everybody will be using something that is compatible with it, but it is going to be taking time because you don’t want to be paying a penalty for having an open RAN.”
To that point, she added: “I think eventually it would be good for the open RAN specifications to become part of 3GPP because then it would be kind of like really open."
The development and proliferation of open RAN also requires a commitment to a roadmap for the future, including new features or standards coming down the pike, Thelander added.
Open RAN Community Lacks Dependency“The operators know how well the big vendors can deliver,” and carriers can factor that into their business model, he said. Whereas, the open RAN community lacks a framework for dependence and forward-looking requirements.
“Open interfaces doesn't mean it's going to be lots of suppliers. They may be sticking in a remote radio head at some point, and it's a third party, but that may take time and it may be very small scale,” Thelander said.
Matt Hatton, founding partner at Transforma Insights, likened the open RAN vision to a broader play for enterprise dollars among telco and IT vendors alike.
“Effectively, open RAN is almost like the operators starting to move on to the turf of the big box vendors, the Ericssons, and the Huaweis, and the Nokias. And at that point, you just say: ‘OK, the gloves are off now. We're all going to go after the enterprise market,’ and that reticence to do so on the part of those big vendors is maybe somewhat removed.”
Peter Jarich, the head of GSMA Intelligence who also moderated the event’s final panel, drove that point home. “Open RAN really was driven by operators,” he said.
“There is a long, long history of industry initiatives which were really good ideas that didn’t go anywhere because you didn’t necessarily have the support of the entire industry. Open RAN wouldn’t be where it was if the C-suite wasn’t saying ‘hey, I want this to happen.’”