Is Open RAN dead? How tier-1 vendors took over the Open RAN vision

Dimitris Mavrakis, Senior Research Director at ABI Research, recently sparked a heated discussion on LinkedIn with his assertion: "Open RAN is dead." While the statement may seem dramatic, Mavrakis' argument is rooted in a clear trend—Open RAN’s early vision of vendor-neutral interoperability is being overshadowed by Tier-1 vendors who are taking control of the ecosystem.

The Open RAN movement began as an effort to break the stronghold of telecom giants like Ericsson, Nokia, and Huawei, allowing smaller vendors to compete by creating open interfaces between different network components.

The goal was to let operators mix and match hardware and software from different suppliers, increasing competition and driving down costs.

Central to this vision were the concepts of the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) and Service Management and Orchestration (SMO), which promised to optimise network performance and introduce innovative new applications.

However, as Mavrakis explained, the very companies’ Open RAN sought to challenge have now embraced—and redefined—it. "The original philosophy of Open RAN is dead," he stated, emphasising that while Open RAN is still evolving, it is doing so under the leadership of the same Tier-1 vendors it was meant to disrupt.

One of the key turning points for Open RAN has been the fate of independent RIC and SMO platforms. VMware, once a major player in Open RAN, has significantly reduced its support for these products following its acquisition by Broadcom.

"VMware has told all of their clients that they are winding down RIC and TCP RAN," said Mavrakis. "They had one client for TCP RAN in the US, which has now switched to Wind River, and no clients for RIC. So, it makes sense that they are decommissioning these product lines."

Juniper Networks, another independent RIC vendor, has also failed to gain traction. "Juniper’s only announced RIC deal was last year with a Middle East operator, and they haven’t announced anything since," Mavrakis noted.

With these two major independent players stepping back, the only mainstream remaining RIC and SMO solutions are tied to Tier-1 vendors like Nokia, Ericsson, and Samsung. Other suppliers offer RIC/SMO products, including Mavenir, CapGemini and Qualcomm, but are their market share is miniscule compared to the deployment footprint of Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia.

This shift fundamentally changes the nature of Open RAN. "Operators now have no choice but to go with a Nokia, Ericsson, or Samsung-led Open RAN deployment," Mavrakis explained.

"Smaller vendors are unlikely to be deployed for nationwide and large scale contracts, especially now that Ericsson and Nokia have adopted Open RAN and are dominating network deployments more than before."

A clear example of how Open RAN has evolved under Tier-1 leadership is AT&T’s network deployment. While AT&T has committed to Open RAN, its implementation tells a different story.

"Ericsson is in charge of integrating Fujitsu and Mavenir radios into AT&T’s network," Mavrakis pointed out. "So, yes, there are open interfaces, but there’s also significant vendor integration involved. This raises the question: What is really different compared to before?"

The essence of Open RAN was supposed to be vendor neutrality, but in practice, the reliance on Tier-1 vendors for integration has kept them firmly in control of network deployments. "This is just the same deployment tactics as before, just with a new name," Mavrakis remarked.

This is not the first time the telecom industry has seen an "open" initiative gradually close itself off. Mavrakis drew parallels to previous attempts at open networking:

• The Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) started as an open standard but became proprietary as major vendors customised it.

• The Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) aimed to create standardised telecom servers, but vendors ultimately made proprietary modifications.

"Open is the new closed," Mavrakis quipped, pointing out that Open RAN appears to be following the same trajectory as its predecessors.

With Open RAN losing momentum in its original form, many industry players are shifting their attention to the AI RAN Alliance. Led by Nvidia, this initiative aims to integrate AI-driven optimisation into telecom networks.

Mavrakis sees this as a promising development: "The AI RAN Alliance is focused on three pillars, two of which are designed to create new revenues—using the network as a service for GPUs and developing new applications."

Unlike Open RAN, AI RAN is not seen as a direct threat to existing vendors. "Ericsson and Nokia are already involved, and they have a lot to gain if networks become AI-native," Mavrakis noted. This suggests that AI-driven RAN solutions may have a smoother path to adoption than Open RAN did.

While Open RAN may not be "dead" in the literal sense, its original vision of a truly open and vendor-neutral telecom ecosystem appears to be fading. "Governments still support Open RAN because they prioritise supply chain diversification," Mavrakis acknowledged. However, he also pointed out that real-world deployments are overwhelmingly led by Tier-1 vendors.

So, what lessons can the industry learn from Open RAN’s journey? According to Mavrakis, there are two key takeaways:

1. Technology must solve real-world problems. "The telecom industry has a habit of developing solutions in search of a problem," he said. "Network slicing and remote surgery were marketed as revolutionary, but they failed to address real enterprise needs." Future innovations must be demand-driven rather than technology-driven.

2. Tier-1 vendors cannot be ignored. "For better or worse, large vendors play a critical role in the telecom ecosystem," Mavrakis noted. "Any future technology—whether it’s 6G or AI RAN—needs to account for their involvement from the outset."

Open RAN may not be completely dead, but its original mission has been fundamentally altered. Rather than a revolution in network openness, it has become a framework largely controlled by the same Tier-1 vendors it was designed to disrupt.

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