Nokia plays waiting game on open RAN competition

INTERVIEW: Jane Rygaard, head of dedicated wireless networks and edge clouds at Nokia, argued it will take another year or two to determine which companies will last the pace in developing and rolling out open RAN, while warning about the risk of the technology becoming too fragmented.

Speaking to Mobile World Live, Rygaard believes “time will tell” whether current infrastructure heavyweights Nokia and Ericsson will emerge as the dominant open RAN vendors, with competition in the segment coming from across the wider ecosystem through established technology providers and emerging software players.

Rygaard however insisted it was not an issue that there are so many players looking for a piece of the action, but cautioned that when a number of companies get involved in developing a technology, “we have to make sure it doesn’t become too fragmented”.

She pointed to the work done by the O-RAN Alliance in ensuring standards are put in place for interfaces and collaboration on the radio side as a way to avoid the risk of fragmentation, and was “clearly the way forward” to progress the technology.

During the interview, Rygaard also addressed Nokia’s recent issues with the O-RAN alliance.