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Vodafone turned to Japanese and American suppliers to fill the gap left by Huawei in its 5G supply chain after the British telecom company awarded Europe’s first major “open RAN” contract to a number of alternative suppliers.
The carrier has signed a contract with Samsung Electronics, NEC, Dell and Wind River to build Europe’s first “open RAN” commercial network. Capgemini, the French consulting group, and Keysight Technologies of the United States will work on network integration.
The contract offers a huge boost to Samsung and NEC, Asian equipment suppliers who have struggled to compete with Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia in the 4G era as telecom companies seek smaller vendors to build 5G networks.
“Open RAN” is a concept that threatens to break the grip of the largest telecom equipment vendors in the wireless market, which tightly combine proprietary hardware with software. An open system allows small and potentially innovative suppliers to enter the 5G market and has been backed by the US and UK governments as a way to increase competition after excluding Huawei, the largest kit provider, from 5G networks. .
The UK government’s decision last year to ban the use of new Huawei equipment for 5G networks from 2021 and phase out existing kits by 2027 has led operators including Vodafone and Telefónica to accelerate plans to use alternative suppliers of radio equipment.
The UK government and the European Commission have pushed the concept of “open RAN” as a way to empower their technology industries by opening up huge amounts of telecom spending to local suppliers of smaller hardware and software. Both the British and German governments have made public funds available for the development of open RAN technology, but have stopped subsidizing companies like Vodafone to replace Huawei equipment.
This has caused tensions within the industry as Ericsson and Nokia, two of Europe’s largest tech companies, already offer alternatives to Huawei.
Vodafone’s initial contracts, awarded after months of testing several open RAN suppliers, nevertheless went to Asian and American suppliers. The company said it may seek to use Europe-based suppliers in the future. “With the support of industrial policies and policies from the European Commission and EU national governments, the open RAN has the potential to bring more European companies into this emerging market,” he said.
Initial work will be in the UK, where 2,500 trees in the south west of the country and covering most of Wales will be upgraded to use open RAN equipment. It will extend the RAN push open to Europe and Africa over time.
Johan Wibergh, Vodafone’s chief technology officer, said the network review would increase flexibility for operators. “Open RAN is also reinvigorating our industry. It will boost the digital economy by stimulating greater technological innovation from a larger pool of suppliers, bringing much-needed diversity to the supply chain, “he said.
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