The newly merged MasOrange has selected Ericsson to both join up the two existing networks, in a sustainable and programmable manner, and to provide Open RAN compliant rural network upgrades. Sources put the latter deal at some 10,000 sites, with much speculation about the extent to which new Ericsson equipment will replace old Huawei gear. For the Open RAN community, this is Ericsson’s second major Open RAN deal, and fears that this ‘single vendor Open RAN’ approach could distort the market are still rife. This Spanish deal is not on the same scale as the $14 billion contract with AT&T, announced at the end of 2023, where Nokia was the party that lost the most. The Finnish vendor did net…