Fierce

Is open RAN dead? Santiago “Yago” Tenorio, the open RAN trailblazer who left Vodafone for Verizon, hears that question a lot. The short answer: No. The longer one but perhaps not what everyone wants to hear: Maybe the industry needs to re-examine what it really means by “open RAN.” Spun out of a desire by operators to break the vendor “lock-in” that vendors like Ericsson and Nokia commandeered, open RAN—short for “Radio Access Network”—was launched as a way to enable operators to mix and match products from different vendors.

Sometimes, less is better. That applies to the assets Verizon brought to the Los Angeles (CA) area during the devastating wildfires these past couple weeks. Verizon often deploys its Tactical Humanitarian Operations Response (THOR) vehicle when reacting to disasters like hurricanes and wildfires. But not so in LA.

With President Donald Trump back in the White House, it’s only a matter of time before the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program gets the overhaul everyone’s anticipating. But first things first, Trump needs to appoint a National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) administrator to succeed Alan Davidson. According to Chad Duval, a partner at accounting firm Moss Adams, rumor has it the new BEAD boss will likely be Arielle Roth, policy director of telecommunications on the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee.

President Donald Trump’s second inauguration came and went, and that means Brendan Carr has officially taken the reins at the Federal Communications Commission. Much of Carr’s telecommunications policy agenda has already been laid out, featuring deregulation galore. Whether tighter regulations on the state front could damper that game plan is tough to say.

Operators in New York state now have to abide by a new law requiring them to offer a broadband option for $15 per month, whether they like it or not (and many of them don’t). However, the war for broadband access rages on, and the state’s decision doesn’t make matters any less complicated. Originally passed in 2021, the New York law states internet service providers must offer low-income households a 25 Mbps internet plan for no more than $15 per month (or $20/month if it’s a 200-meg plan).

As we enter 2025, Standalone 5G (5G SA) continues to struggle to deliver on its transformative potential.

Utopia Fiber has been building open access fiber networks before hardly anyone in the U.S. knew what that was. Now, open access is gaining prominence, thanks to big players like AT&T getting in on the action. But Roger Timmerman, executive director and CEO of Utopia Fiber, said he doesn’t consider AT&T’s Gigapower joint venture with BlackRock to be a true open access network—at least not yet. Timmerman argued that in his opinion AT&T isn’t really doing open access because it’s the only tenant on the Gigapower network.