After a decade of fierce rivalry with China’s technology giant Huawei, Europe’s telecoms equipment champions Nokia and Ericsson could soon face myriad new competitors to contend with.
As Europe cuts back on using Huawei equipment in its 5G networks, mobile operators are looking far and wide for companies to replace it. The Continent’s ”big four” telcos Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone and Orange on Wednesday published a joint ”memorandum of understanding” pledging to prioritize the development of ”Open RAN” technology, a concept that would benefit smaller equipment and software makers.
Open RAN encompasses the idea of chopping up the 5G supply chain into smaller pieces and imposing standards on equipment and software firms so their products can work together — a ”Lego approach,” as one expert called it, to digital infrastructure. It would allow operators to procure specialized kit and services in smaller contracts with different players to piece together a 5G network, breaking the market power of “end-to-end” vendors like Ericsson and Nokia. Läs artikel