The initial assessment of damage caused by Nokia’s decision to freeze activities in the O-RAN Alliance remains narrow, but the consequences that follow could be significant if that fallout isn’t contained. 

Nokia’s seemingly out of nowhere heightened concern about the participation of some blacklisted Chinese vendors could be minor and short lived. However, this cut could fester and cause a divergence pulling the global effort to open radio access network (RAN) functions and interfaces into Chinese and Western factions.

Protectionism, geopolitics, security, and power are all at play. Nokia’s suspension of activities in the O-RAN Alliance is a power play that also spotlights the same underlying challenges impacting the global technology landscape.

Vendors and operators are maneuvering a hodgepodge of restrictions imposed on Chinese vendors in the U.S. and many Western countries while still collaborating with those same companies in global standards bodies and technical specification organizations such as the O-RAN Alliance. 

What’s allowed and what isn’t? What are the consequences of collaborating with a blacklisted company or a company otherwise deemed a national security threat by the U.S government? Some lines have been drawn and others are increasingly tested. 

Nokia’s decision appears to be aimed at reaching some clarity on the level of Chinese influence allowed, but it’s also a gambit to see if other vendors or operators are willing to follow suit. That hasn’t happened yet.

“The Nokia announcement is part of an effort to make open RAN a political issue,” Monica Paolini, principal analyst at Senza Fili, told SDxCentral. “Open RAN is not a Chinese, U.S., Western Europe technology. This is something that has been growing with the contribution of multiple countries, different viewpoints, and the result is a new model for the RAN that is open, that is very flexible, that allows operators to do different things.”

A project as ambitious as open RAN requires global participation, she said. “This is where the whole world comes together.” Developing open RAN specifications without contributions from Chinese vendors would be like developing 5G while excluding Chinese participation, according to Paolini.

Stéphane Téral, chief analyst at LightCounting, agrees on the need for diverse participation. “We need all the brains this planet has to offer to advance open RAN as a global standard as fast as possible. Participation in and contribution to the development of a global standard has nothing to do with the purchase of equipment from a supplier labeled as a security threat. These are two distinct issues,” he said.

Nonetheless, Nokia is a heavyweight in the O-RAN Alliance and the pause will slow down the organization’s progress until the issue is resolved, he said

What that resolution looks like remains unclear. Téral and Paolini don’t expect other companies to join Nokia’s boycott. The O-RAN Alliance could dismiss the trio of smaller Chinese companies currently blacklisted by the U.S government, but that doesn’t tackle the broader question about powerhouse Chinese companies like China Mobile, a founding member of the O-RAN Alliance that’s also considered a national security threat.

The U.S. government isn’t likely to weigh in on this matter, and why would it? The O-RAN Alliance is a German entity. 

“It seems like a much easier solution is to basically grant the O-RAN Alliance a status, which is the same or similar to standards organizations,” Paolini said. “If the O-RAN Alliance is considered to be an organization, either a standards body, or an organization that needs to have global reach, which I think is the case, then this issue will just disappear.”

The O-RAN Alliance is one of the most powerful multinational organizations developing technical specifications for open RAN, but it’s not the center of power. Some operators and vendors are pushing ahead on open RAN irrespective of the status of activities at the O-RAN Alliance.

Frontrunners like Rakuten Mobile, Dish Network, Telefónica, and others “are not waiting for the O-RAN Alliance to plan and build their open RAN networks,” Téral said. 

“I believe this event reflects some friction within the alliance. Let’s not forget that every member company has its own agenda, and in the end the open RAN market is finite and cutting into the oligopolistic traditional RAN market,” he said. 

While every vendor faces impacts from the technical and geopolitical challenges associated with open RAN, the trajectory and pickup of the technology remains, explained Chris Antlitz, principal analyst at Technology Business Research. “We still believe open vRAN is the ultimate end state for RAN evolution, but it looks like it will take a little longer for the industry to commercialize and scale out the technology given these challenges,” he said. 

“Standards fracturing for key technologies, in this case for 5G, is a very real possibility and the probability of this becoming structural is increasing. There are already signs of standards fracturing occurring in various parts of the world, mostly under the guise of national security and economic protectionism,” Antlitz said. “The market will adapt accordingly. Open vRAN is inevitable and is a question of when, not if it will happen.”

If such a fracturing were to happen it “would just send a very bad signal to the wireless community beyond open RAN,” Paolini warns. 

The wireless industry, not always unified around technical standards, is now a model for success in other sectors, and “we don’t want to destroy that success,” she said, adding that security and global technical development must be addressed separately and in a different forum.

Technology evolution isn’t directly related to a country or company’s ability to defend itself against security threats, Paolini said. “Even if this is resolved, it’s still a symptom of a larger problem … We need to really decouple technology from politics or trade regulation.”

Excluding some companies is not a replacement for a fundamentally solid security strategy, according to Paolini. 

“Resist the attempts to make open RAN a political statement. It’s like wearing masks or not wearing masks becoming a political statement,” she said. “Whether you wear a mask or not is a health issue. It shouldn’t be a political issue. Same thing. Open RAN is a technology that should be evaluated on its merits and not on political agendas.”