Competition with Huawei is another reason for the retrenchment of Parallel Wireless, according to Joe Madden, Principal Analyst, Mobile-Experts.
Parallel Wireless has been very successful in the initial deployment of Open RAN systems in Africa, the Middle East, and other Asian countries where operators were open to new vendors, Madden told Inside Towers. However, the vendor has faced new competition from Huawei in developing countries, since it has been barred from a number of Western countries and is forced to use 4G technology in China due to semiconductor restrictions.
“Huawei has become extremely aggressive in places like Africa and in the Middle East, which are markets that Parallel Wireless has targeted,” Madden said. “This is the number one reason why Parallel Wireless didn’t grow the way they hoped to just two years ago.”
The Chinese government has long targeted Africa, in particular, with money for economic development, which gives Chinese companies outsized influence in terms of selling to countries on the continent. “China Incorporated has these small countries over a barrel because they loan them money for hydroelectric projects or port facilities or railroads or whatever else they need,” Madden said. “Parallel Wireless could never compete at the political level to leverage their way into these opportunities, and so it was left delivering a few units here and there, and finding that it didn’t scale up to nationwide deployments.”
Madden added that competition with Huawei in developing countries will have an impact on all Open RAN vendors, including Mavenir, Rakuten Symphony, Fujitsu and NEC. However, those companies are more diverse in their focus and are looking at markets where the Chinese vendor may not compete, he added.
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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