What AT&T Investors Need to Know About the $14 Billion Open RAN Deal
Telecom giant AT (NYSE: T) is embarking on a revamp of its wireless network infrastructure. The company announced last week that it had signed a deal with Sweden's Ericsson to spend as much as $14 billion over five years to deploy open radio access network, or Open RAN, technology.
Within a wireless network, the RAN is responsible for connecting end-user devices to the core network. Devices such as smartphones send data to a RAN's transceivers, which then does complex processing before passing that data along to the core wireless network. That core network then connects to the internet.
RANs are a mix of hardware and software. AT currently uses proprietary solutions that couple together hardware and software. Open RAN disaggregates the different components, allowing for hardware from different vendors and software from different vendors to work together. By adopting Open RAN technology, AT will have the ability to mix and match suppliers and build a highly flexible network that is potentially more cost-efficient.
Source Fool.com
