Technology immature, Nokia urges U.S. not to force Open RAN

Mike Murphy, Nokia ’s chief technology officer for the Americas, urged US lawmakers to revise a legislative proposal requiring operators to use Open RAN equipment, citing that the technology is still immature.

The executive was referring to a bill introduced in January that aims to set up a $ 750 million fund to support the development of Open RAN.

In addition, the bill will force operators to commit to transitioning to Open RAN equipment over a seven-year period if they want to be compensated for the cost of replacing equipment that is considered a national security threat.

This condition may mainly apply to small US carriers and operators in rural areas, who are the main users of Huawei and ZTE equipment.

Mike Murphy publicly opposed the rule at a Senate hearing, saying that very few products fully comply with the O-RAN Alliance specifications. He said it would be unreasonable to impose this requirement on some “weak early adopters.” Instead, he advocated a “technology-neutral” approach.

At the same hearing, Steven Berry, CEO of the Competitive Carriers Association, suggested that Open RAN vendors, including Mavenir and Parallel Wireless, could provide cost-effective replacement equipment for rural operators with limited resources. But at the same time, like Mike Murphy, he urged politicians not to force the use of certain network technologies.

He elaborated on this in written testimony, explaining that small operators do not have sufficient resources to test new network elements at any time and may not be able to cope with the interoperability requirements and system integration costs involved in using multiple vendors.

Steven Berry added that small operators rely on equipment to share economies of scale with larger competitors and therefore “cannot promote the development of the entire ecosystem.” He states, “If new technologies fulfill their promise, they will successfully compete in the market.”

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