
- Vodafone is about to start a radio access network (RAN) technology refresh at more than 170,000 sites in multiple markets
- The request for proposal (RFP) process, dubbed Spring 6, is all but over, with contract awards imminent
- Vodafone has always talked about Open RAN technology playing a significant role in the refresh in Europe
- The telco’s Spring 6 decisions will send a signal to the broader market about Open RAN’s potential
Vodafone Group is on the cusp of completing its lengthy request for quotation/proposal (RFQ/P) process for a radio access network (RAN) technology refresh at 170,000 sites across multiple markets in Europe and Africa by awarding major commercial deals to multiple vendors, with those contract awards set to provide a health check for the Open RAN technology sector that Vodafone has long championed.
Vodafone has long talked about its plans to refresh its RAN technology, as its current supply deals come to an end in March, and it issued its RAN request for proposal (RFP) to select vendors in April last year.
It has also stated on many occasions its plan to “widely deploy Open RAN across Europe”, where it has about 100,000 mobile sites, with the aim of having at least 30% of those European sites running on Open RAN technology by 2030.
Vodafone has long been a very vocal supporter of the Open RAN option for mobile networks, believing that technology alternatives to the mobile network infrastructure sector’s three main vendors – Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia – is important for supplier diversity, competition and innovation.
This is why its Spring 6 decisions will shed some light on the current state of Open RAN, which has attracted only patchy support from much of the mobile operator community – if Vodafone isn’t heavily committed, then major support in the near term from other operators is less likely to materialise.
For Vodafone, a final decision, in terms of binding contract awards, is imminent – though it should be noted that this has been the case for some months. In November, Paco Pignatelli, head of Open RAN at Vodafone, told TelecomTV that the operator was “not too far from closing, so potentially days or weeks. I don't think it will take too much more time.”
More than two months later, the process is not yet fully completed, TelecomTV has been informed (though Vodafone declined to comment). But even in November, the operator seemed pretty clear about what it was going to do and with which companies. “It's definitely not too much deviation from the initial plan, which I'm very happy about,” stated Pignatelli. “We have seen good proposals from the ecosystem,” he added.
For the Open RAN slice of the Spring 6 pie, the big questions are: How big will that slice be? Which companies get to play a role? And, how much of it will Ericsson get?
Size matters
One of the problems for the Open RAN vendor sector has been achieving scale and, as multiple industry analysts groups such as Dell’Oro Group have been pointing out, investments in Open RAN have been patchy with the total market expected to be worth less than $2bn this year (according to Dell’Oro) or even smaller – see Open RAN investments plummet – report.
Scale only comes with multiple major rollouts, of which there are few currently, such as Rakuten Mobile and NTT Docomo in Japan, and AT&T and Dish Network (Boost) in the US (with Verizon set to join in). Germany’s 1&1 and Canada’s Telus are the operators that have significant commitments to commercial Open RAN rollouts, and that hasn’t made for much of a market opportunity for competitive RAN technology suppliers: Mavenir appears to have suffered as a result of the lack of scale.
Vodafone has been testing the waters with trials and some commercial deployments, including in the UK and Romania, but these haven’t been large scale so far – instead, they have been the deployments that have helped to guide its Spring 6 decisions.
If Vodafone ‘goes large’ with Open RAN in Europe starting this year, and hands significant deals to challenger vendors, it will have an impact on the market in terms of scale and boosting confidence that such Open RAN options are viable.
Pignatelli’s comment that there is “little deviation” from the original plan suggests that around 30% of Vodafone’s European sites are on course to be migrated to Open RAN technology over the next five years.
Vendor selection
While Open RAN was long associated with ‘alternative’ mobile network infrastructure vendor selections, Nokia has long had an Open RAN pitch and, in the past 18 months, Ericsson has emerged as a major player, courtesy of its whopping five-year, $14bn deal with AT&T – see AT&T goes big on Open RAN with Ericsson.
The Swedish vendor is also a key vendor partner in Telefónica’s next-generation RAN rollout plans – see Ericsson and Telefónica sign MoU for Cloud RAN evolution and Ericsson and O2 Telefónica begin Open RAN journey with first Cloud RAN deployment in Europe.
Vodafone has so far championed alternative suppliers and seems to have settled on a core group of vendors that have proved to be compatible from a technical and operational perspective, with Samsung Networks, Wind River and Dell Technologies the key trio: They feature in the deployment in Romania, which Vodafone is undertaking in partnership with Orange, and in the UK, where Vodafone is replacing Huawei gear with Open RAN systems at an initial 2,500 sites.
It will come as no surprise to anyone in the industry that Samsung Networks, Wind River and Dell Technologies are, according to TelecomTV’s sources, set to feature in Vodafone’s Spring 6 selection and are gearing up to start delivering their products this year.
It was notable that Pignatelli namechecked that trio back in November when he said that the “good performance” of the Open RAN rollout in the UK was “[built] on the shoulders of giants, our selection of suppliers. They are already deploying in other markets in a big way. Samsung, Wind River, Dell – they are already capable companies. We obviously had to get together, start managing the process on how you make the final product live and how you sort out problems. But I think we came a long way and in that sense it’s a success story so far.”
The big surprise would be if Samsung, Wind River and Dell didn’t get a decent piece of the Vodafone action.
In terms of ‘alternative’ RAN technology suppliers, those companies are set to be joined by others: Expectations are high that spectrum multiplier specialist Cohere Technologies, which has been in trials with Vodafone for some time, will also feature in the Spring 6 lineup. The company’s management has been hinting that significant carrier deals are close to being announced and Vodafone is set to be one of them.
But while the Samsung/Wind River/Dell combo will play a role in Vodafone’s European RAN refresh, it doesn’t mean they’re going to get all of the Open RAN action: Industry watchers have long been expecting Vodafone to name Ericsson as an Open RAN (as well as traditional single-vendor RAN) supplier and the Spring 6 selection could introduce that particular relationship, though no industry sources have suggested to TelecomTV that this is a certainty.
This is why Vodafone’s final Spring 6 contract awards are so eagerly awaited by vendors and operators alike: The final mix of vendors and the volume of business awarded to the ‘alternative’ RAN suppliers will provide the market with the equivalent of a health check on Open RAN, which could certainly do with a new injection of life.
- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV
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