Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone are working to pair new management software with Huawei’s radio access network as an alternative to its complete removal.
To the dismay of Huawei’s European rivals, Germany and its operators may just have given the world a template for dealing with the problematic Chinese vendor. Resisting the more comprehensive bans ordered in other countries, Germany’s government will allow Huawei permanent residency in the radio access network (RAN) – provided someone else stumps up the network management software. After living with it for about five years, authorities last week decided Huawei’s code poses too big a security risk and must eventually go.
But this won’t be easy. Networks and their management software have always come as a package, joined by the umbilical cord of a proprietary interface. Snipping it so that another player can update and control Huawei’s RAN is not impossible, but Huawei would have to open its technology to that party, something it has not previously done. It would be a step toward an open RAN, a telco push for compete interoperability between different RAN suppliers. Huawei, in public, is opposed to the whole idea.
The Chinese company, however, would prefer this to the full “rip and replace” job taking place in countries like the UK, where Huawei’s revenues have collapsed as its presence has shrunk. Service management and orchestration (or SMO), the open RAN label for management software, accounts for as little as 1% of capital expenditure on the network and almost none of the operating costs, according to a reliable industry source. That will make some degree of openness look like a price worth paying.
Interface alphabet soup
How would it be done? The O-RAN Alliance, the telco group defining open RAN specifications, is currently working on an interface called O1 to join one company’s SMO platform to another’s RAN. But SMO and O1 are not, of course, a feature of the traditional 5G products that Huawei sells to Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica Germany and Vodafone. Instead, Huawei and the other party would have to collaborate on unlocking the proprietary “northbound” and “southbound” interfaces between the element management system and the RAN.
One option could involve the use of SMO technology as an umbrella platform for all the RAN systems in the network, Huawei’s included. None of the German telcos is solely reliant on Huawei. Across about a third of its footprint, Deutsche Telekom also uses Ericsson, which similarly caters to about half of Vodafone’s network. Telefónica’s is divided between Huawei and Nokia. The SMO platform could be connected to the various element management systems via an interface called OSSii, which predates the O-RAN Alliance by several years.
Yet Huawei’s element management system could not be left in place under the new government rules. The substitute, then, would probably have to collaborate with Huawei on exposing RAN information through OSSii to this SMO platform. Otherwise, Huawei’s RAN, excluded from the platform, would have to be separately managed and controlled.
The question is who substitutes for Huawei as the provider of management software for its RAN. Ericsson and Nokia seem unlikely candidates because this would entail working in such close partnership with a rival, and one deemed a security threat by various government agencies. As customers of US technology companies, and suppliers to the biggest US operators, the Nordic companies are bound to worry about violating American sanctions and upsetting US watchdogs.
Far likelier candidates are the telcos themselves. As previously reported by Light Reading, Deutsche Telekom has been working on the development of its own management software, which it finally confirmed in its official response to the government decision. This internal work, moreover, appears to have been done with the government’s knowledge and approval.
Deutsche Telekom would clearly prefer to retain Huawei for management software and RAN components. Describing its work as “pioneering,” it goes on to say that: “We had proposed this innovative approach to the federal government for more provider diversity – which requires the willingness of manufacturers to cooperate – even if the associated financial expenditure represents a challenge for us.” On the other hand, the project should help to advance the open RAN movement, it says.
A China-free zone?
There is some optimism within the industry that Huawei will budge and agree to open the relevant proprietary interfaces if the alternative is a full swap-out of its RAN kit. But a source at the heart of open RAN doubts Huawei will go any further than is necessary. The bigger concern is whether Germany’s fix appeases critics. If Huawei must work closely with Deutsche Telekom and other telcos to ensure the new management software can interface with its RAN, the substitute system will hardly look like a China-free zone. And replacing the management software does not mean changing the baseband code used at RAN sites. This will continue to come from Huawei.
Telcos have also been given another five and a half years to complete the software overhaul, a lengthy timeline that will further annoy critics. Vodafone alluded to the difficulty of the task in its own response to the government announcement, hailing open RAN without indicating if it would follow the same approach as Deutsche Telekom.
“The agreement is technically challenging but feasible and the right way forward,” said a Vodafone spokesperson by email. “For infrastructure investors the agreement finally provides much needed predictability. We already do not use Chinese network equipment in the core in Germany. We’re also driving open RAN development to create a fourth scaled com-tech ecosystem. We have included open RAN in the world’s largest radio network tender to achieve that goal.”
That tender, mentioned in Vodafone’s last annual report, is for 170,000 basestations across the whole of Vodafone’s African and European footprint. The prominent role Samsung plays in Vodafone’s open RAN deployments across the UK and Romania has led to speculation the South Korean vendor is being lined up for bigger things. But last week’s government move, which leaves Vodafone under less pressure to replace Huawei in Germany, will do nothing to boost Samsung.
Both Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone claim to have no Huawei products in the core, the network’s main control center. That means they are already compliant with another of the government’s latest rules, which forbids any use of Chinese vendors in this part of the network beyond 2026. As for Telefónica, it currently operates two 5G cores, but neither comes from Huawei.
“There is now a clear roadmap for modernization of defined network elements,” said Telefónica in its official statement on the government plan. “This clarity is important and ensures reliability. This allows mobile operators to continue to drive nationwide network expansion in a focused manner and ensure increasing improvements in the network experience.”
Ericsson and Nokia will not say it, but they would have hoped for much tougher restrictions of the sort that have buoyed them in other markets. Chinese vendors remain “aggressive” rivals in Europe and Latin America, said Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm during a quarterly earnings update with analysts last week. European Union approval of Germany’s plan, and its adoption by other regulators and telcos, could make Huawei an even bigger competitive threat.
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