While Japan’s Rakuten and Dish in the US have launched greenfield Open RAN networks, India’s Jio missed its Q2 2021 launch date for its 5G rollout. In Germany, newcomer 1&1 is planning its greenfield play that will be built and managed by Rakuten. This research note outlines the Open RAN… Read more...

One thing that Open RAN has in common with traditional network deployments is the need for sufficient spectrum. Similarly, delays in the availability of spectrum affect operator plans for both 5G and Open RAN. Policymakers are increasingly supporting the Open RAN movement and many are implementing measures to promote Open… Read more...

Despite its critics, the Open RAN movement continues to take shape in 2022, expanding beyond greenfield operators to a growing number of brownfield operators with plans for the phased integration of Open RAN and vRAN into legacy networks. Among brownfield operators, there is a trend to promote shared Open RAN… Read more...

Japan’s policy is to release new spectrum and reorganise existing allocations in anticipation of strong demand in the future from 5G/Beyond 5G, satellite, IoT/Wi-Fi and next generation mobility systems such as V2X. Read more...

A growing number of regulators are moving to assign or set aside spectrum for private networks. This Research Note provides an overview of the status of spectrum earmarked for localized usage highlighting global and regional trends and setting the stage for more detailed consideration of private spectrum policy approaches that… Read more...

NTT Docomo remains Japan's largest telecommunications company. The operator is heavily involved in 5G, 6G and Open Radio Access Network activities, and is part of a group investigating future high-altitude platform stations. Read more...

Japanese operator SoftBank is part of the SoftBank Group, which describes itself as "a capital provider driving the Information Revolution."  It is strongly focused 5G and 6G. Read more...

Nations worldwide are assigning 26 GHz spectrum, and to a lesser degree 28 GHz, for IMT. This Research Note catalogues the status of 26 and 28 GHz spectrum awards in a representative sample of nations, identifying regional variations and trends. Read more...

The country’s three established operators – NTT Docomo, KDDI and SoftBank – all launched commercial 5G service in March 2020, while newcomer Rakuten Mobile arrived on the scene six months later. Read more...

Are the network economics of traditional 5G networks unsustainable? 5G operators are spending billions of dollars building out networks with increasing operational complexities also adding to costs. At the same time ARPU is languishing. Can Open RAN solve the problem? Read more...