Dish Network’s pool of vendors for its yet-to-be built cloud-native, virtualized open radio access network (RAN) is starting to look strikingly similar to Rakuten Mobile. All three of the first vendors tapped to be involved in Dish’s greenfield 5G network are also working with the Japanese greenfield operator.

Dish today said it will make a “large purchase” of low- and mid-band O-RAN Alliance compliant radios from Fujitsu. Altiostar will also provide open RAN software alongside Mavenir, which inked a similar deal with Dish in April.

Executives at Dish and Rakuten Mobile have held regular discussions about their plans and Dish has been upfront about its desire to emulate Rakuten’s network infrastructure strategy. “Dish has an affinity for what Rakuten is doing and there will be significant commonality between the two operators in their network architectures,” said Chris Antlitz, principal analyst at Technology Business Research.

Fujitsu, a Japan-based technology conglomerate, is a “legitimate RAN vendor with good technology, but the company has historically only supplied a few operators, most notably NTT DoCoMo in Japan, whom they have supplied with RAN for decades,” he said.

The company’s technology is competitive, even if it’s “not a top of mind RAN vendor due to its very small market share and limited marketing,” Antlitz explained, adding that the company “has little to lose by disrupting itself in RAN and aligning with Dish’s requirements.”

The shift to an open RAN architecture could present Fujitsu with an opportunity to grow its RAN business globally and position itself as a “disruptive alternative to incumbents,” Antlitz said. NEC, another Japan-based vendor that Rakuten Mobile tapped for its 5G standalone (SA) core, is a close competitor with Fujitsu that’s following a similar path.

Dish, which last month said it plans to launch 5G service in a single market with a network core before the end of 2020, is purchasing Fujitsu’s tri-band remote radio units for use in low-band spectrum and dual-band remote radio units for use in mid-band spectrum. The company’s claim that both frameworks are industry firsts for O-RAN Alliance compliant radios.

Fujitsu is also slated to help Dish with radio and antenna integration, and distributed and remote unit hardware validation between vendors, including Altiostar and Mavenir. Altiostar’s involvement will enable Dish to dynamically scale its network and deploy new 5G services, according to the operator.

“By using open architecture to build the first standalone 5G network in the U.S., we are able to work with the best vendors from across the supply chain to effectively serve multiple segments, including consumers, enterprises, and emerging 5G vertical markets,” said Marc Rouanne, EVP and chief network officer at Dish, in a statement. 

“Using multiple vendors is part of the magic of the new architecture. It enables vendor diversity and reduces the incidence of lock in,” Antlitz said. “There will be integration challenges and delays because this architecture is so new,” but those problems will ultimately get resolved, he added. 

It’s unclear how much Dish will diversify its vendor pool as the company declined to specify if Fujitsu will be its exclusive RAN vendor, but there will likely be a larger group of companies working on the software piece. Rakuten Mobile has corralled at least 20 vendors for its network. Dish also declined to respond to a request for clarity on how Altiostar and Mavenir’s software will factor into its network, with each perhaps focusing on different aspects of the network or providing specialized services.