What will the Trump admin do with the American RAN scene?
Analysts say there is a possibility of the U.S. government buying a stake in Ericsson or Nokia
But they doubt Cisco will buy into the RAN scene
The Trump administration’s renewed support for Open RAN has thrown up questions about what the future holds for the radio access systems that allow operators to create networks with components from multiple vendors.
One of the problems faced in the radio access network (RAN) scene generally is that America doesn’t have a domestic radio network vendor with the market share to compete with the top five global RAN vendors. One solution originally mooted by Attorney General William Barr in the first Trump term is that the American government could buy their way onto the RAN scene by taking a share in either Ericsson or Nokia. Neither the administration or the Nordic vendors have made any statement on this yet.
Analysts Fierce spoke to think a buyout is a possibility, even if it’s a remote one!
“There is the possibility that U.S. government buys its way into Ericsson or Nokia, but I think EU could make it difficult,” said Daryl Schoolar, analyst at Recon Analytics in an email to Fierce. “I also think the US government would want which ever of the two they invested in to move its HQ in the United States,” he noted, which we’ve written about before.
The only U.S. networking vendor with a hope of cracking the top five global RAN vendors — which are Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung — is Cisco. The U.S. vendor, however, has consistently said it is not interested in getting into the RAN game, preferring to exploit its enterprise WiFi and networking advantage instead.
“I don’t see Cisco getting into RAN,” Scholar said simply.
Stefan Pongratz, RAN maven and VP at Dell’Oro Group agreed with Schoolar. “It is not easy to enter the RAN market. Open RAN or not, it is a scale game,” he said. “So, the non-organic approach is preferred, but clearly, anyone looking at this space will need to think twice given the M&A track record, RAN growth trajectory, and margins.”
Scholar even suggested that small domestic Open RAN vendor might still be the easiest solution to America’s RAN rationing. “I think the logical answer to your question is Mavenir,” he suggested. “The company is already here in the U.S. and is in the macro RAN market. It would be the easiest of scenarios for the government to act upon.”
Mavenir, however, is still a minnow in the RAN sea compared to Ericsson or Huawei.