- Airspan emerged from its 2024 restructuring with a stronger balance sheet
- The company recently received a $42.7 million grant to fund open RAN development
- In addition to open RAN, CEO Glenn Laxdal sees more opportunity in private networks
Open Radio Access Network (RAN) technology often gets a bad rap for not living up to expectations. Private wireless is kind of in the same boat. And yet, Airspan Networks, a nearly 30-year-old company that has seen its share of ups and downs, is pinning its future hopes and dreams on these areas. But why?
It’s simple, according to Airspan President and CEO Glenn Laxdal, a former Ericsson executive. They see growth in these markets – enough to make it worthwhile for a company Airspan's size.
“We like open RAN because of its programmability, but more to the point, I think that the industry is going to start to embrace open RAN more and more going forward," he told Fierce. "That works to our advantage because it doesn't take much to move the needle for a smaller company like Airspan that is solely focused on open RAN development."
The company, which employs roughly 300 people now compared to about 800 a few years ago, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year and underwent a restructuring that gave it a new owner in Fortress Investment Group. Now a private company, Airspan’s previous debt was eliminated, and it received $85.4 million in equity financing with access to an additional $20 million line of credit.
“We are now extremely well capitalized. We're debt free and we have an investor that is willing to invest in the company's success at a time where we see open RAN starting to blossom across the industry on the mobile network operator side,” Laxdal said. “We can take that open RAN networking capability – which for us is primarily the programmability of open RAN – into the private network space where we see long-term growth ahead of us.”
Already, Airspan was awarded a $42.7 million grant through a National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) program designed to advance open RAN. While other U.S. government programs are getting gutted, the Trump 2.0 administration appears to be bullish about investments in open RAN.
The thinking is that open RAN represents an opportunity for smaller U.S.-based vendors to break into the RAN space, one that’s been dominated by Nordic vendors Ericsson and Nokia as well as China's Huawei. In the U.S., the open RAN movement attracts bipartisan support, and Florida-based Airspan expects that to continue.
“We have tremendous experience on both the baseband development side as well as on the radio side,” Laxdal noted. “This is an industry that requires a pretty deep expertise, and the more experience you have, the better you tend to be at it.”
Airpan’s current customers include Gogo and Charter Communications in the U.S., as well as Rakuten in Japan and Reliance Jio in India.
Its prospective list of customers includes any operator, big or small, that’s looking to expand their RAN suppliers – including AT&T and Vodafone. The idea is to get into the queue, so to speak, for when operators issue their RFPs or RFQs.
“Going forward, on the mobile network operator space, we see a trend toward open RAN, and while it's been slow to be adopted and embraced globally, we actually see that accelerating now” in part on the heels of AT&T’s decision to award a $14 billion open RAN contract to Ericsson, Laxdal said.
Small cells, too
Closely tied to private wireless is the small cell market, where Airspan’s experience runs deep. Recall in the 4G era when Airspan was the supplier of Magic Box, which was designed to improve LTE coverage. Sprint literally gave wings to Magic Box. Laxdal said Airspain remains committed to small cells.
But these days, open RAN is the topic du jour. Similar to open RAN, the private network market is “pretty strong” for Airspan, Laxdal said. Its private wireless clients include factories, transportation hubs and other verticals.
“There are pockets of these private network opportunities that we're starting to roll out globally that leverage what we do uniquely well, and what we do uniquely well at Airspan is we can provide customized solutions” that address unique spectrum bands and end-to-end solutions customers require. This, he said, distinguishes Airspan from the bigger players – Ericsson and Nokia – that might not be so quick to pursue customized solutions because they're more focused on global economies of scale. (His rivals would probably disagree.)
Again, “it's coming off of a small base, but it's a growing market,” Laxdal said of private networks. For example, Airspan provides the air-to-ground system for GoGo, a 5G signaling system for the New York subway system and, with a systems integrator partner, connectivity for nuclear reactors in Korea.
According to Joe Madden, chief analyst at Mobile Experts, Airspan is in a good position to capture a share of the private cellular equipment market
“Airspan has made a great comeback from bankruptcy filing to a much stronger financial position,” Madden told Fierce.
“Very few established companies that supply hardware have their corporate headquarters in the United States, so Airspan does have an advantage in private cellular opportunities for U.S. government locations such as military bases and government buildings, as well as ‘critical infrastructure,’ such as utilities,” Madden added.
Between open RAN, private wireless and a new lease on life, Airspan will have plenty to talk about when the industry gathers at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in a couple weeks.