Special Report: Open RAN ups and downs
This week’s special report returns to the always-active world of Open RAN, and a market that is displaying the familiar signs of post-hype turbulence. The past couple of years have seen a considering amount of hype from vendors, politicians and some operators, as is common to the early, pre-commercial stages of any hopeful new technology.
But of course, the over-optimism and unrealistic expectations of the starry-eyed period not only obscure discussion of genuine benefits, but lead to disappointment and backlash when the early stages of commercial reality blow a cold wind of realism over the sector, when the inevitable deployment challenges and teething troubles take center stage.
One way to maintain the heady mood of the early, optimistic days is for the community to start talking about the next ‘over the rainbow’ phase. When 3G was having a hard time, there was more talk about distant 4G than about the real remedies of HSDPA. With 5G Standalone (SA) deployment failing to catch fire (as Ericsson’s latest report reveals, despite its upbeat language), there is rising industry chatter about 6G (some genuinely thoughtful, some just a distraction). And so it comes as no surprise, when many operators – even Open RAN supporters – are urging caution about timescales, that the O-RAN Alliance has established its first 6G activities.
Another way to head off disillusionment is to accelerate work on addressing real challenges and so improving the case for the technology, even where these challenges are not exciting or intrinsically headline-grabbing. Vodafone, which has already put significant weight behind driving affordable chip architectures, has now turned its attention to Massive MIMO integration with Open RAN, one of the most important areas of operator uncertainty. And Samsung has quietly addressed a shortfall that several operators have highlighted, notably in the UK – its lack of support for 2G.
The biggest stress, in this period of uncertainty that surrounds any emerging technology, falls on start-ups that have staked their success on a new platform but may find the deployment timescales too long to survive. Some, such as integration firm Aspire, which has been bought by NEC, are lucky enough to find a good acquisition before the cold winds bite; others have to undergo painful adjustments to weather the storm (and perhaps wait for their own white knight), as we are seeing in Parallel Wireless’s drastic staff reductions.
Such developments are, of course, very important to the companies involved, but should not be taken as a sign of general success or failure of an immature platform such as Open RAN. A couple more years will go by before we see with real clarity where Open RAN has succeeded or failed, and which vendors and operators are profiting the most. Will Open RAN be developed and controlled by tier one players such as NEC and Nokia, or will smaller players like Parallel and JMA manage to stay on course and take their place in a more diversified ecosystem? Too early to tell, but a new survey indicates a real demand for open networks (see below). All stakeholders just need to be realistic about the time it may take to achieve at-scale deployment – as BT’s plea for more time to replace Huawei highlights – and plan their strategies accordingly.