Samsung is perplexed by AT&T’s recent decision to base its 5G open radio access network (RAN) infrastructure on a single vendor, but that doesn’t mean the South Korea-based equipment giant does not see significant market potential heading into 2024.

Alok Shah, VP of strategy and marketing for Samsung Electronics America’s networks business, told SDxCentral in an interview that the open RAN market has seen strong progress this year. That progress was highlighted by AT&T’s recent decision to put names and numbers behind its open RAN plans.

Those names include Ericsson being the base of that open RAN deployment and the numbers being plans to spend around $14 billion over the next five years to deploy open RAN equipment with the goal of having 70% of its wireless network traffic flowing through its open RAN platform by the end of 2026.

Shah broadly applauded AT&T’s move, noting “AT&T showing an intent to move to open RAN is very positive and another great step for an operator that’s always been quite active in the open RAN process.”

However, he added that AT&T’s specific plans are going to be a “process.”

“I don't know that the way they've chosen to do it is necessarily what I've seen work in the past,” Shah said of AT&T's heavy reliance on one vendor to underpin its open RAN deployment. “I mean, if you look at other industries, I think having the dominant vendor be the one with responsibility to open up the network is sort of a conflict of interest, let's say, in incentives. So, we'll have to see how that plays out. But, overall, seeing AT&T moving in the direction of open RAN is very positive for the ecosystem.”

That positivity is key for the open RAN ecosystem as many expect the market is set for a near-term cool down. Joe Madden, lead analyst at Mobile Experts, told attendees at the recent Cable-Tec Expo 2023 that open RAN-related revenues peaked in 2022 at just over $2 billion and will dip slightly this year. Then he expects them to drop to a $1.5 billion per year run rate between 2024 and 2026.

Shah also gave AT&T credit for releasing deployment and usage goals.

“It's one thing to say, yes, we're going to start rolling out open RAN and vRAN [virtualized RAN] in our network and it's another thing to say we plan to have 70% of the traffic on our network sitting on an open RAN-compliant system by 2026. That’s much more tangible,” Shah said. “It does open them up to scrutiny if 2026 comes around and they're not where they want to be. But it certainly holds everyone's feet to the fire, which is positive.”

AT&T’s SDN and NFV efforts operated under similar self-imposed scrutiny.

Shah did add that open RAN maturity should ease AT&T’s reliance on Ericsson, but could still prove a challenge.

“I think the question of having one supplier sort of be the gatekeeper to that activity I think is a choice, and we'll just have to see how it plays out,” Shah said. “I think it's always helpful to have leverage is what it comes down to. If one supplier has 100% of the network and they're going to have dominant market share in the U.S. and pretty strong globally, I think that it creates some questions about how this will go.”

Igal Elbaz, network CTO at AT&T, explained during a press briefing on the open RAN announcement that the carrier is keeping the door open to other vendors being added to its plans.

“Our base platform and collaboration is going to be done with Ericsson and, as we are moving into a multivendor platform and ecosystem, Nokia as well as others can be part of it,” Elbaz said.

[Related: Nokia CEO: ‘Losing the AT&T deal hurts’]

Shah stated that Samsung remains interested in participating at some point.

“I think we'll learn as we go where the opportunities might be if [AT&T does] move to a multivendor open RAN architecture, then we'd love to compete for business,” Shah said. “But I think it's a little too early to tell.”

Other vendors have also stated a desire to participate in AT&T's plans.

Despite not being part of AT&T’s initial open RAN plans, Samsung is busy in the space both domestically and internationally.

Samsung is a core part of Dish Network’s greenfield 5G deployment, which includes supplying open RAN and vRAN equipment. It also supplanted rival Nokia as a RAN supplier to Verizon.

More recently, Samsung has been expanding work with U.S.-based cable communication providers like Comcast in support of their deeper pushes into the wireless telecommunications market.

Samsung is also gaining significant traction in Europe and Asia, where it’s working with established brownfield operators to deploy open RAN components into their networks.

Shah noted the market was shaping up for a “really interesting year” in 2024.

He cited market momentum around services like fixed-wireless access (FWA), which is witnessing strong growth that could start to stress network resources and require operators to invest in bolstering support.

Shah also said that AT&T’s recent announcement was just the latest of what he expects to be more operators “taking the plunge” on open RAN and vRAN, with a focus on unlocking financial benefits from their 5G network deployments.

“I think we as an industry are still looking forward to figuring out what are the other killer apps that are going to drive 5G,” Shah said. “It'll be an interesting time from an end-user device perspective to see where that innovation is taking place. We built pretty great networks and now it's time for the entrepreneurs and innovators to start putting some traffic on them.”