Open RAN going strength to strength

HERE’S WHY OPEN RAN’S RECRUITMENT AND DEPLOYMENT IS GOING FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH

The last two years have been incredibly important for the development of Open RAN. In 2020 the concept gained further credibility and it seems in 2021 Open RAN has taken a giant leap forward, based on the results from Light Reading’s 3rd annual Open RAN Operator Survey. The continued momentum of Open RAN’s advancement is cause for excitement and it’s no surprise that optimistic predictions put its market value at $15bn by 2025.

It’s full steam ahead for the roll out of Open RAN

Of those surveyed, a fifth (20%) stated that the pace of their company’s planned roll out of Open RAN is happening faster than expected, which is great news for the industry. However, just over a quarter (27%) said that their company’s pace had reduced over the last 12 months – perhaps caused by the covid pandemic. From speaking with our clients, the consensus is that the deployment of Open RAN is going as expected, which is encouraging news for the telecommunications industry.

Looking forward to the 2023 and more good news is on the horizon. Of those surveyed, 82% of companies have committed to a live commercial deployment of Open RAN within the next two years. Breaking this figure down further, 22% have already deployed, 23% will deploy in the next 12 months and 37% will deploy in 12 to 24 months’ time. This activity mirrors what we are seeing in the market in terms of available jobs in Open RAN.

Looking even further into the future, the respondents were asked “By 2025, what percentage of your RAN capex is expected to be dedicated to Open RAN?” Whilst the majority respondents said that up to 20% of RAN capex will be dedicated to Open RAN, encouragingly 4% of respondents said over half of their RAN capex will be dedicated to Open RAN.

The readiness for commercial deployment

Almost two-thirds of respondents (63%) believe that the overall system performance of products and architectures is either mature or close to mature for scale deployments. Mass deployments also brings to light the question of security. Just how secure will Open RAN solutions be? 49% of respondents feel that Open RAN will be harder to secure than an Integrated RAN solution. More positively, 23% feel that Open RAN will be more secure due to greater visibility and the ability to harden each layer. With groups such as Telecom Infra Project making great strides it’s great to see how Open RAN is continuously being developed.

The skills needed to deliver Open RAN

We continue to work with organisations in recruiting technical, sales, e-commerce experts for Open RAN companies, and here are some example roles & skills we’re actively recruiting for:

• R&D Project Manager
• Power Supply Design Engineer
• 5G/M-MIMO Software Engineer
• 5G Digital PreDistortion (PDP) Engineer
• Senior Cloud Network Engineer
• Key Account Manager
• Sales Director
• RF Performance Test Engineer
• Director of Project Line Manager
• PreSales Engineer
• 5G E2E Systems Engineer
• Open RAN Delivery Engineer
• Regional Sales Manager
• RAN Software Engineer
• RAN Solutions Engineer
• Senior Quality Assurance Engineer
• PCB Layout Engineer
• Physical Layer Software Engineer
• Layer 2/3 Stack Software Engineer

David Taylor, Managing Director of First Point Group commented “It’s great to see our international teams using their global knowledge and local networks to fuel our client’s Open RAN growth. From the US to Europe, Africa to Asia, Open RAN trials and deployments are growing rapidly which is great to see.”

If your company is recruiting for Open RAN jobs, contact First Point Group who can provide expert Open RAN recruitment advice.