AT&T's announcement last week has all the hallmarks of a butterfly effect moment, the kind that can later turn into a massive event and have tectonic-shifting impacts on the wireless industry. What is it about?
AT&T announced its intention to invest $14B with Ericsson to deploy Open RAN technology across the network.
Ericsson's stock went up within hours while their rival's, Nokia, dropped. Many financial analysts seem to see this as a simple supplier decision, but in reality, it's much more than that.
But what is Open RAN, exactly? While there are many experts on this topic, here's my attempt to explain the high-level points.
Mobile networks have generally used radio equipment from primarily one vendor across a geographic region. For this reason, there is strong vendor lock-in for most operators.
In an "open" world, each piece of equipment could be provided by different vendors as long as the interfaces that connect them are standardized and everyone's equipment is tested and operates seamlessly according to some basic performance criteria.
Open RAN is the idea of opening up one of the most complex and capital-intensive areas of the wireless network to create vendor choice while allowing more network innovation.
It's a lofty goal, but not without challenges. Why? Even though Open RAN deployments have occurred for the past few years, there is a challenge in skills and mindset since it's more software-based than historically seen before.
That could also explain why the adoption from major mobile operators has been slow. In tomorrow's newsletter, 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙏𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙢 𝘾𝙤𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙧, I'll explain where we are in adopting this new technology and why this is so big for the wireless industry.
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Q: What are your thoughts on Open RAN and AT&T's announcement?
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