- Analyst Earl Lum believes that T-Mobile will be the next operator to drop Nokia for Ericsson
- Lum laid out his concerns on Nokia's RAN in a LinkedIn article
- This would cement Ericsson's premier position in the North American RAN market
Wireless expert and telecom analyst Earl Lum told Fierce this afternoon that he thinks that T-Mobile US will ditch Nokia for its Nordic rival Ericsson because of a multitude of technical issues with its cellular equipment, which he detailed in a LinkedIn piece.
If it happens, this would mean that Nokia has been dropped by all three of the major mobile operators in the United States and Ericsson had largely locked up the North American market.
In case you forgot, Lum, who is president at EJL Wireless Research, broke the news that AT&T was dropping Nokia for Ericsson last year, so he has some skin in this game. "You can't poke a hole in the technical side of what I've stated because everything is factual," Lum told Fierce in a call this afternoon.
Lum's issues with the Nokia gear start and end with fans. "ALL of Nokia's competitors have managed to design the same massive MIMO radios with the same MIMO configuration (32T/64T), at the same RF output power, with the same IBW/OBW, and with the same weight but WITHOUT fans," he stated in the LinkedIn piece.
He also noted in the piece that T-Mobile USA may be less scared of going with a single major supplier after AT&T's experience with Ericsson, and said that T-Mobile has waited 10-plus years for Nokia to fix issues with fans in its multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radio boxes.
We checked in with Roy Chua, principal analyst, AvidThink, this afternoon on Lum's note and he said, "Earl has the sources."
Lum expects that we could hear about a T-Mobile/Ericsson deal by early December. That might also explain the recent Ericsson talk about moving its headquarters to the U.S.
So maybe it should be, thanks for the memory, Nokia.
Nokia said in response to this story that it “ is proud to be T-Mobile’s long-standing partner in Radio Access Networks (RAN). We are confident in our industry-leading portfolio which has helped us grow market share with many of our existing RAN customers as well as to win completely new ones." Nokia stated that Lum's comments mainly relate to its first generation 5G products designed in 2018.
T-Mobile said: "We continue to work with them on ensuring our customers have the best mobile network experience. We have made no decision to end our working relationship with Nokia, and any reports in the media implying this are untrue."
Nokia's shares dropped 6.84% today on the report to $4.16.