Parallel Wireless CEO Steve Papa took to LinkedIn this week to explain some of what led up to the company laying off a significant portion of its staff in late June.
Papa didn’t disclose how many people were let go, although The Mobile Network reported it might have been 80% of the staff, so possibly 700-800 people out of 1,000.
Papa reassured customers and prospects: “Our rollouts will continue, our RAN R&D will continue, and we will continue to innovate in partnership" with mobile network operators (MNOs).
He also expanded on his earlier, self-admittedly “terse” statement about what led to the layoffs: global economic conditions, Covid supply chain constraints and the pace of adoption of open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) equipment.
“In recent years we have felt pressure from customers to ‘sprint’ to solve the hugely diverse technical needs for the wide variety of global mobile networks – presumably, this was from the global 5G enthusiasm,” Papa wrote. “But in a Covid constrained environment the realities of the longer times to develop and introduce new technology into the network became increasingly clear and we mutually concluded with MNOs that instead of a sprint we should be managing for a marathon. A marathon where we first focus on a self-sustaining business for key segments of the industry and broaden from there. Unsurprisingly there are many examples of this same pattern – Samsung being perhaps the most recent.”
Under the heading "ORAN adoption," he said the foundation of the sprint has been the pursuit of Huawei-class KPIs in 2G/4G networks and over the past 12 months, “we have gotten there – something that gives us great pride,” he said. “But once there our customers reinforced it’s still a marathon. They have complex existing rollouts underway and while we can incrementally grow share, it’s at a pace that can’t justify the expenditure rate of a sprint.”
He also cited the capital markets and global economic conditions that have emerged over the past six months and how that further reinforces the need to reset for a marathon.
“While there are plenty of forced and unforced errors in our sprint that we could debate they are part and parcel to any ambitious undertaking,” he said. “Thank you for the continued interest in our aspirations to improve global connectivity.”