The substance behind the chatter lies in two areas: It’s certainly not commercially important yet but that is to be expected when most of the specs have not been finalised, so while there is considerable hype, it’s unfair to dismiss it as mainly PR. If open RAN gets the success its proponents predict, it will account for less than 1 per cent of the 5G mobile sites in 2025 and not more than 3 per cent in 2030.
It is too little, too late to make a difference when it comes to 5G. Open RAN only supports 4G and 5G and therefore it is not a 1:1 commercial alternative for 5G networks. There is only one commercial open RAN installation, Rakuten Mobile in Japan. These are classic RAN installations which support 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G in one base station. GSMA figures show more than 175 commercial 5G networks have been launched globally.