Fierce Wireless Open RAN Summit Key Takeaways

We just recently attended the virtual 2024 Fierce Wireless Open RAN Summit and here are some points to consider.

Single Vendor Deployment

Initial Open RAN deployments will likely be single vendor DU/RU or single vendor DU, 2 vendor RU architectures for mobile operators. The future goal (whenever that is) will be to have multiple RU vendors (assuming any survive that long) and maybe another DU vendor (if the operator likes to live life on the edge of a cliff).

Another Year or more for SMO and RIC

The SMO and RIC layers are not fully ready in 2024 and will take another year or so (2H 2025) to reach a level of maturity and network stability for mobile operators to be comfortable (according to Vodafone).

Vodafone Group Plc Open RAN Reference Designs

Vodafone is leading the charge to create network reference design packages based on specific vendors for each layer of the ecosystem from lab management to RU hardware. These can be used as a template by other MNOs who do not have the R&D resources to evaluate all of the possible configurations and which ones are optimal and meet the stringent performance parameters that Vodafone deems acceptable.

The initial vendor winners are: Samsung, NEC, Dell, Wind River, Keysight Technologies, and Capgemini Engineering

NOT mentioned during the summit about Vodafone Group Plc

With Vodafone being the leading advocate globally for Open RAN, we remain puzzled as to why only 30% of their mobile networks in Europe (not the entire European/African footprint) will be Open RAN by 2030 (5+ years from now) and not 100% via the new “Project Spring 6” RFP. The initial Samsung deployments in the UK are to swap out a portion (2,500 sites or ~43% of Huawei sites), not 100% of Huawei 4G equipment and deploy 4G/5G vRAN. We remind readers that Vodafone awarded Huawei a five year contract under “Project Spring” back in 2014 that spanned 15 countries including the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa, Mozambique, Lesotho, DRC, and Ghana. This was for 2G/3G/4G RAN equipment and a lot of sites within each operating country.

One argument is that Open RAN, from Vodafone’s perspective, serves as a platform for replacing Huawei RAN equipment across its European operations where governments supporting the “Chinese security issue” mindset for telco networks have banned Chinese telco equipment.

Another argument is that the 30% of European network macro sites to be Open RAN by 2030 will primarily be in the “rural areas” of each country with the remaining 70% using traditional/vRAN equipment from the current RAN equipment incumbents. The initial 16 field trial sites from Vodafone in Southwest England were split into two clusters. Cluster 1 with 10 macro sites serving a population of 33k and Cluster 2 with 6 macro sites serving a population of 60k. The 2,500 Open RAN macro sites cover the entire region of South-West of England and Wales which could be considered rural or rural/urban areas. Other regions in the UK that would fall under this definition would include Northern Ireland, the North East, Yorkshire and Humber, and East Midlands.

When does Vodafone UK announce a 2,500 site Open RAN upgrade in central London with a population of ~9 million?

Given the 5G requirements from many European governments to include the rural areas as a condition for 5G spectrum licenses and to reach 99%+ signal coverage, Vodafone must economically deploy 5G to these areas. Open RAN makes total sense for Vodafone and other MNOs in the rural and rural/urban areas across their European network footprints. The key issues for the rural and rural/urban areas have always been cost and coverage. That is why these areas remain the last item on any MNOs punch list for network deployment and upgrades. This is also why we have seen so many network sharing agreements between MNOs across multiple countries to meet the 5G deployment requirements.

Another question we have is why not deploy Open RAN macro sites in Vodafone Africa’s networks? Huawei’s 4G equipment is deployed across all of these networks so if you believe in Argument 1, then the Project Spring 6 RFQ should also have a percentage goal of Open RAN macro sites by 2030. We believe that since Huawei and Chinese vendors are not and never will be banned from African networks that the Project Spring 6 tender for the African networks will include Huawei and/or ZTE, unlike for the European networks.

But what about Argument 2 to use Open RAN for rural and rural/suburban markets? There are many rural and rural/suburban areas across the Vodafone African mobile networks so couldn’t Open RAN help reduce potential costs due to capacity right-sizing of these macro sites? We believe that the price structure that the Chinese OEMs will bid on for the African tender will negate any potential cost savings from Open RAN and a single or dual RAN incumbent vendor situation will remain.

So which argument is the real reason for Vodafone's reasoning for charging forward with Open RAN? We believe that it is a combination of both. Assuming the cost savings are really there, Open RAN potentially solves the rural 5G signal coverage issue at a potentially lower cost than traditional RAN equipment as the network capacity can be right sized for these sites. It also allows Vodafone to dangle this sparkling diamond of 30k macro sites to better negotiate on pricing for this portion of Project Spring 6. Finally, it will allow for a migration path to vRAN for Vodafone. The main issue becomes timing and when all of the pieces are finally commercially available. Also, who will be left in the Open RAN ecosystem by 2027+ given the USD billions in investments that have not had a spectacular return? The new vendors cannot wait forever for revenues to emerge and at some point, the vendor logo list will begin to shrink. Time will tell if we are correct in our assumptions.