The story of open RAN is nuanced. Beyond the formidable technology piece, geopolitics inform how the ecosystem of open RAN proponents are framing the issue, which is becoming increasingly politicized.
Earlier this month the Open RAN Policy Coalition launched. The members at launch were a mix of open RAN vendors and operators. Then, a few days later, Nokia announced it had joined the Open RAN Policy Coalition, making the company unique among its comp set and raising questions about motivation. To wit, Nokia sells fully-integrated RAN technology stacks and presumably wants to sell as many of those as possible.
