At the end of a year, the question arises, “What just happened and what did it mean?” Joe Madden, Principal at Mobile-Experts, shared with us three major technologies — Open RAN, Virtual RAN, millimeter wave — that made waves in 2023 plus one — neutral host — that may make the cut in 2024.
Open RAN got a lot of attention in 2023. At the end of 2022, the NTIA had stated that “open and interoperable architectures are one way of creating a more open, diverse and innovative market.”
This year was marked by some notable adoptions of Open RAN standards. First, Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) adopted the standard, and then in December AT&T (NYSE: T) threw its weight behind the OEM in a $14 billion deal over five years. A deal that analysts are still trying to figure out. AT&T’s Open RAN plan is for 70 percent of its wireless network traffic to flow across open-capable platforms by late 2026.
“In 2023, we had some important milestones for Open RAN,” Madden said. “We have large nationwide networks now running Open RAN successfully and recently AT&T committed to spending a lot of money on Open RAN. So both Greenfield and Brownfield deployments are using Open RAN.”
For example, 1&1 AG (ETR: 1U1) launched an Open RAN mobile network to become Germany’s fourth mobile network operator. Vodafone (NASDAQ: VOD) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) partnered to introduce Open RAN in Italy, and together with Samsung, piloted Open RAN in Germany. Nokia and Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE: DE) began to deploy a multi-vendor Open RAN network with Fujitsu in Northern Germany.
At the same time, Open RAN revenues have sagged, notably at NEC, the second largest Open RAN supplier. Open RAN revenues will still account for 5 to 10 percent of the 2023 RAN market, according to Dell’Oro Group.
Verizon began 2023 with 8,000 cell sites already virtualized in its network and it made progress during the year toward its goal of virtualizing 20,000 sites by 2025. Ericsson deployed the first virtualized cell site in the Verizon network.
Madden doesn’t think the Ericsson agreement with AT&T was primarily motivated by the Open RAN standard. Instead, the goal was to choose a single software vendor to implement a flexible virtual network, he said.
“With Ericsson’s software, AT&T will be able to do more things with the cloud and to try to sell better services to the customers,” he said. “That new revenue opportunity is unknown right now but AT&T is making a big bet that going through a painful rehash of their network is going to get them to new revenue opportunities.”
The market for millimeter wave (mmWave) equipment has become clearer this year. Originally, the market for mmWave spectrum was expected to be offloading mobile broadband traffic. But that didn’t become a reality between 2019 and 2022, and it was thought to be a failure, according to Madden.
“But with the Super Bowl in 2023, we saw a very successful demonstration of mmWave in the stadium, and we have also seen significant growth of fixed wireless access using mmWave. So there are two successful business cases this year,” Madden said.
There was a lot of news concerning neutral host networks in 2023. In July, Ericsson and its partner Proptivity rolled out neutral host-led shared indoor 5G RAN, using the Radio Dot System in a central Stockholm property, owned and managed by building owner Fastpartner. Additionally, InfiniG unveiled a Neutral Host-as-a-Service offering, which will create collaborations with the MNOs, enterprises, and commercial real estate owners.
In September, Celona announced a neutral host-based partnership with T-Mobile and Ericsson’s collaboration. Celona’s network operates over CBRS shared private wireless spectrum, and it is officially certified within T-Mobile’s “Bring Your Own Coverage” 2.0 program.
In November, Kajeet launched the Smart Private 5G Neutral Host Network Platform, signing up T-Mobile and AT&T. The neutral host network combines cellular coverage and private 5G networks into a single in-building solution.
There is an elephant in the room when it comes to neutral host networks, however. T-Mobile and AT&T are signing up to take part in these networks, but Verizon, so far, won’t do it. So it’s not complete.
“If you’re running a hotel, an airport, or a hospital, you want to be able to tell people that their phone will roam inside the building. Without the number one carrier, you can’t really say that,” Madden said. “So this is something that’s coming. Hopefully, Verizon will come around and then we’ll have all three of the big carriers available for neutral hosting and then it will be a trend in the market.”
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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