The U.S. government has announced new funding to accelerate the market for open radio access network technology (Open RAN).
The $42 million will fund a project by a consortium of telecommunications companies, universities and technology suppliers to build test, evaluation and research and development centers at separate locations in the Dallas and Washington, D.C., areas.
The center focuses on testing network performance, interoperability, and security, and supports research into new testing methodologies. Its purpose is to make industry-standard tests more available to new market participants, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Typically, mobile operators must choose a single supplier for technology across their mobile sites, from radio antennas and baseband units to servers and software. The idea of Open RAN is to allow more combination between equipment from different vendors, potentially reducing costs and facilitating network deployment.
“Telecom operators have historically been major proponents of open RAN, as they prefer greater vendor choice and easier equipment interoperability. Some carriers, such as Japan’s Rakuten, , see Open RAN as a key part of the transition to more modern virtualized architectures, which will enable faster innovation through greater use of software,” said Director of Network Innovation at CCS Insight. , said Ian Fogg. IT professional.
“Challenger network vendors are also driving this technology because they see open RAN as a mechanism they will use to grow against the incumbent large network vendors. Many of the challengers are headquartered in the United States,” he said.
The funding was announced by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). “Fostering innovation and competition in wireless technology is critical to America’s economic and national security,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
“These grants will support facilities and advance research that will help the United States lead the global telecommunications market, strengthen supply chains, and open up new opportunities to reduce costs.”
The US government hopes that investing in this strategy of building interoperable 5G network technology will give US companies a chance to catch up with Chinese rivals, especially Huawei, in terms of network infrastructure. There is.
“5G is a dynamic technology, but today’s wireless equipment market is static and highly integrated,” said NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson.
In its latest grant, NTIA awarded $140 million from its Wireless Innovation Fund. The program is his 10-year, $1.5 billion program aimed at supporting the development of open and interoperable wireless networks.
AT&T and Verizon will lead the project, while Japanese telecommunications company NTT Docomo and India’s Reliance Jio are said to be founding members of the “unfunded” consortium.
The University of Texas at Dallas, Virginia Tech, Northeastern University, Iowa State University and Rutgers University are also participating. Many technology companies are also participating, including Microsoft, Nokia, Radisys, Airspan, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Rakuten, Samsung, Mavenir, VMWare, RedHat, Wind River, Ciena, Cisco, Dell, Intel, Amdocs, Keysight, and VIAVI. .
“Assessing how different products integrate with each other is a key part of fostering the more diverse vendor ecosystem that many in industry and government envision. “Before adding products from different vendors to your network, you need to be confident that they will work together at scale,” said Robert Soni, vice president of AT&T RAN Technology. I am.
AT&T announced in December that it was working with Ericsson to deploy open RAN products at its cell sites and said it planned to move 70% of its wireless traffic to open infrastructure by 2026.
Earlier this month, Verizon announced it now has more than 130,000 O-RAN-enabled radios in its fleet, while in the UK Vodafone also began deploying OpenRAN equipment at 2,500 locations in Wales and the south-west of England. It is used as an alternative to Huawei technology.
Last month, the government awarded $80 million to six other projects aimed at new test and evaluation facilities, as well as research and development projects focused on cybersecurity, automation, increasing energy efficiency and improving testing. I did.
According to technology analyst Counterpoint Research, investment in open RAN networks has steadily increased in recent years, primarily by greenfield network operators in Asia Pacific and North America. However, after rapidly building out their networks, these carriers want to reduce their capital expenditures and focus on monetizing their networks.
The analyst firm also said that many network operators remain very cautious about further investments in 5G infrastructure, especially open RAN, due to the uncertain macroeconomic situation.
As a result, Counterpoint Research expects the open RAN market to stagnate this year and next, before rising again in 2025.
