Open RAN in the USA: The $9bn dollar market

With a predicted market share of 31% in 2030, Open RAN is the telco gift that keeps on giving. According to a recent report by Research and Market, the global Open RAN market is projected to be worth $32 billion in just eight years’ time. The benefit of Open RAN has always been that it can reduce the total cost of ownership leading to increased price competition, and therefore lower the barriers to entry, enabling operators to deploy network elements from a range of suppliers.

Open RAN in the USA: A quick snapshot

Samsung are making big strides in the Open RAN market with a deal with Dish Networks, whereby the latter aims to cover 20% of the US population with mobile coverage by June 2022. The plan for Dish is to expand this to 70% by 2023. Mark Louison, head of the Networks Business, Samsung Electronics America recently commented “Our advanced 5G vRAN and radio solutions bring telco-grade quality and cloud-based agility together, building on these benefits to enable more customers to experience the full value of commercial 5G Open RAN.” 

Samsung aren’t the only company growing their Open RAN business, Texas-based telecommunications company, Mavenir, is expanding its Open RAN reach across the atlantic as it launches an Open RAN centre of excellence in Bonn, Germany to focus on developing Open RAN engineer, planning, design system integration and deployment. 

However, a recent article by Light Reading highlights that the deployment of Open RAN isn’t always plain sailing, Cellcom is taking down its Open RAN network in Wisconsin due to the difficulties it has faced in getting equipment for the operation. Whilst Parallel Wireless supplied the software, Cellcom’s purchasing power mean that it couldn’t obtain radios due to vendors’ minimum volume purchasing requirements. 

Open RAN Recruitment 

A quick search on LinkedIn shows that there are currently 236 live jobs in Open RAN,  30% of which were posted in the last 7 days and 86% posted in the last month. The Open RAN recruitment market is booming with companies such as Meta, NEC and Spirent actively recruiting for roles such as 5G Open RAN Software Engineers and Technical Product Managers for Open RAN, we only see the recruitment market getting more active up and growing. 

David Taylor, Managing Director of First Point Group commented:

“The demand for candidates with the right skillset remains in high demand for those telco companies who are hiring for jobs in Open RAN. This demand isn’t just limited to America, but across the globe. Open RAN recruitment continues as Open RAN itself remains to be a force in the telecommunications market driving evolution and change. It’s great to see the Open RAN recruitment market so active.”

Whether you are an Open RAN engineer looking for a new role or more information, it would be great to hear from you. Contact our specialist Open RAN recruitment consultants in your local region.