Telcos cite higher cost, performance issues to adopt open RAN tech

Even as telecom operators in the country have been testing the open radio access network (RAN) technology for some years now, they have flagged factors like higher cost, issues in performance, no clarity over service support, among key reasons that are restricting the commercial deployment of technology.

This assumes significance in the sense that open RAN technology which was expected to reduce the cost for network deployment by about 30% for telcos, instead has shown an over two times increase in the cost compared to current traditional RAN solutions, executives said. RAN constitutes a major portion of the capital expenditure (capex) of telecom operators.