5G NETWORKS
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future of advanced digital technologies | Digital Catapult
to UK mobile network operators ( MNOs ). The UK Government is so committed to ejecting Huawei from the UK ’ s telecom industry that , back in November of last year , it passed a new law ( aimed at increasing the UK ’ s telecom network security standards and “ removing the threat of high risk vendors ”) under which companies in breach of the new regulations can face fines of up to 10 % of their annual turnover , or - if found to be in direct violation - as much as £ 100,000 a day for working with a “ high-risk vendor .” The upshot : goodbye Huawei . The fallout for the UK ’ s MNOs : a very small pool of existing options got even smaller .
In a market overwhelmingly controlled
> 1 %
OpenRAN market share in 2020
10 %
OpenRAN market share in 2025 by two leading vendors , network infrastructure has largely been designed to be sold as a proprietary , top-to-bottom solution . The issue this causes is that these networks lack interoperability with any third party software or hardware , suppressing competition and making it hard for smaller , more agile suppliers ( who might make a single component of a 5G network very , very well , but don ’ t have the scale to make a whole network ) to gain a foothold .
OpenRAN to the Rescue Meet OpenRAN , a methodology that ’ s starting to gain some serious traction in several markets , including the UK . In
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