Vodafone Teams with Dell, Samsung, Others for Open-RAN Development

On Monday, Vodafone said that it has selected six partners to build Europe's first commercial Open RAN.

Vodafone and Friend Starts Open-RAN Development

The British telco said that the partners were Dell Technologies, NEC Samsung, Wind River, Capgemini Engineering and Keysight Technologies. The partners will help Vodafone build one of the largest Open RAN networks in the world. Vodafone said the partnerships will use its new Open RAN lab in Newbury, southern England. Also, the partners will use its planned digital skills hubs in Malaga, Spain, and Dresden, Germany. Neither party has disclosed the financial terms of the agreement as of now.

In a market dominated by Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia, this move will allow more vendors to enter the market. Also, Samsung has finally entered the European market, per its plans to grow its 5G gear business. Also, the UK has taken a similar strategy to the US against Huawei, citing national security risks. Therefore, the UK has ordered the telcos to remove all Huawei equipment from its 5G network by the end of 2027.

Samsung Enters European Market with Vodafone In Britain

Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei dominate the European telecom market. However, Samsung has entered the picture after it landed a $6 billion deal with Verizon in September.

"It still has a long way to go to catch Ericsson and Nokia, but Samsung has a well-rounded 5G RAN portfolio across mobile broadband, fixed wireless access and private 5G networks, so it should be seen as a genuine contender," said CCS Insight analyst Richard Webb.

Incidentally, Open RAN allows telcos to use equipment from a variety of telecom vendors. This allows them to reduce costs significantly and better flexibility while deploying a new network.