The method changes, the objective remains the same.Porting the stick against the carrot under the presidency of Joe Biden, the United States has set up various training and incentive programs for Allied countries wishing to build 5G equipment without any technology stamped Huawei.A break in the policy of Donald Trump's policy, made of direct sanctions inflicted on the Chinese manufacturer, which however serves a similar goal: to counter Huawei supremacy around 5G.Despite American retaliation measures, the Chinese giant remains the world leader in telecom network equipment, with 31% market share.It also constitutes, with his colleague ZTE and the Europeans Ericsson and Nokia, one of the four international heavyweights specialized in 5G infrastructure and equipment.

Of champions, America has no.Building on this observation, the American government is currently striving to release a new asset of its round: open technology, through Open RAN, a new type of infrastructure which allows the decompartmentalization of equipment and interfaces, as well as theVirtualization of network functions.

Decompartmentalize 5G

Currently, the infrastructure proposed by Huawei, ZTE, Nokia and Ericsson works in a vacuum: we choose one of the four manufacturers, and we must then resort exclusively to its hardware and its software for the operation ofIts 5G network.With Open Ran, this is no longer the case: we can mix the equipment and software from different suppliers.

A great decompartmentalization capable of breaking the silos between the different 5G environments, and therefore of contesting the supremacy of the current tenors of the market, stimulating competition and bringing out new players.Blessed bread for the American ecosystem, which, helpless in the field of 5G infrastructure, has on the other hand young dynamic players ready to position themselves on the Open Ran market, including Airspan Networks, JMA, Parallel Wireless or even, which recently concluded a partnership with Orange.

The software devours everything...including 5G

This is why, on January 14, 2020, a bipartisan group of six American senators tabled a bill aimed at developing an open 5G architecture to boost Western competition against Huawei and Zte.A few months later, an information report Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a laboratory of ideas devoted to scientific and technological policies, called on the American government to adopt a national policy around 5G, which would focus on virtualizationNetworks to play on American industry forces and counter Huawei.

His prayers were heard.Last June, the Senate voted an investment of $ 1.5 billion in 5G, which aims in particular to develop open ranks.A few months earlier, the DARPA for its part weave an agreement with Linux Foundation, pillar of free software, for the development of an open 5G.

But the Open RAN also promises to bring 5G into the era of the software: indeed, virtualization makes it possible to transfer certain functions currently provided by proprietary equipment to the cloud.This tilting to the software provides advantages similar to the emergence of Cloud Computing in IT: faster deployment speed, possibility of increasing or decreasing the capacity according to needs, energy savings allowed by this surgical adaptationFrom consumption to needs...

The United States wants to play its advantage on the software

But from an American point of view, virtualization still has an additional advantage, the country with some of the best software companies in the world, a domain which constitutes the weak point of Chinese giants, according to Thomas J.Duesterberg, Senior Fellowau Hudson Institute, a laboratory of American ideas.

No wonder, therefore, that these companies are at the forefront when it comes to promoting the 5G open.Facebook supports the Open Ran through its Telecom Infra Project, and the Open Ran Policy Coalition, which militates for the American authorities to promote an open 5G (and without Huawei) brings together, among others, Dell, Google, IBM, Intel,Oracle, Cisco, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and VMware.

Among the most advanced initiatives are that of DISH Network, an American satellite television broadcast company, which strives to build a network of 5G open across the Atlantic, in partnership with certain American tech giants.The objective: to set up a first offer in Las Vegas next year, which must be extended to the whole country in 2023.A project that will serve as a life -size test for American ambitions, according to Thomas Duesterberg.

The company has concluded an agreement with AWS, which will take care of the software part."The added value will clearly rest on the software, which is why companies like Amazon enter the game. Microsoft a de son côté tissé un accord similaire avec AT&T...»»

Limit geopolitical risks

America cannot, however, be a horseman alone: for this strategy to work, allied countries must also bet on 5G open.Japan is already essential as a privileged partner.The Rakuten online commerce giant deploys an ambitious project supposed to cover the whole territory, which already has three million users.6,000 stations have so far been deployed, and the company thus intends to bring the 5G open to 70% of its population by the end of the year.The Americans Altiostar, Cisco, Red Hat and Qualcomm are all partners of this project.

Europe, which has two major equipment manufacturers (Nokia and Ericsson) suffering full of competition from the Chinese giants, and has also been taken between two fires in the trade war between the United States and China, lets itself bealso attempt by the 5G open.In a world where technological giants can be victims of political quarrels, betting on opening and competition appears to be a better way to ensure the resilience of its telecommunications infrastructure.

In the United Kingdom, a team responsible by the government to get rid of Huawei equipment in telecoms (goal which must be achieved by 2027 on the orders of the authorities), recommends that new equipment manufacturers or using open software constitute 25% of the telecommunications infrastructure by 2025.The German government will invest two billion dollars in this technology.