Open RAN movement gathers pace

Open RAN may now have passed the “peak of inflated expectations” stage of the Gartner hype cycle but there are still no suggestions of a “trough of disillusionment”.

As our newly updated Open RAN dossier shows, the movement is gaining traction. There’s support from greenfield operators (Rakuten in Japan, Dish in the US, Jio in India and 1&1 in Germany), major incumbent operators and numerous vendors.

In addition, more and more brownfield operators are moving into the Open RAN space, many with phased plans to transition to more open 5G networks in the medium to long term. Open RAN specifications and advocacy bodies are drawing in a diverse array of participants.

However, the limited number of live 5G greenfield deployments means there’s little evidence yet that Open RAN is better than traditional RAN technologies.

And brownfield operators have taken a cautious approach to Open RAN so far. They tend to promote shared, collaborative Open RAN development and testing platforms.

Our research also suggests that Open RAN continues to be driven by specifications, rather than standards. This means there are still several different visions of the future Open RAN ecosystem.

There are some hints that consolidation may be on the horizon. Rakuten has acquired a number of its original vendors, such as Robin.io. In May 2022, Broadcom unveiled plans to acquire VMware. NEC, Amdocs and Qualcomm have all made acquisitions.

The Open RAN story has some way to go yet. Subscribers to our Spectrum Research Service can check out its current status in our updated dossier now.