Most large-scale deployments of virtualised RAN (vRAN) at Tier 1 telcos are currently based on single-vendor architecture. But operators are deploying vRAN in innovative ways that aim to preserve many open RAN benefits. This report looks at the current status of vRAN and open RAN deployments as well as the increasing awareness of the importance of deploying cloud-native RAN across multiple containers-as-a-service (CaaS) layers.

The objectives behind open RAN live on, even if actual delivery is less open than originally planned

The cloud-delivered and cloud-native character of open RAN was, at one time, almost sidelined by discussions around performance and multi-vendor integration. Now, however, while single-vendor vRAN is the main way in which cloud-native RAN is being delivered, vendors increasingly need to demonstrate interoperability of their platforms across multiple CaaS layers.

If you are not a subscriber, enter your details below to download an extract of the report

In the early days of the open RAN project, attention was paid mostly to the challenges of integrating radios and baseband software from multiple vendors and to the optimisation of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware to support RAN workloads. This meant that comparatively little attention was devoted to the virtualisation layer and the question of which cloud layer open RAN functions should run on has arguably gone a bit under the radar.

At that time, the industry had doubts whether the above integration and performance challenges could be overcome – or at least how easily, at what cost and over what timescale. Now, there is industry consensus that those technical challenges have been answered thanks to the many tests and pilots involving multi-vendor open RAN ecosystems that have been declared a success. And Ericsson’s and Nokia’s belated espousal of open RAN is also indicative, although their ‘cloud RAN’ platforms arguably do not conform to the pure multi-vendor open RAN vision.

While those challenges were being grappled with, there was a widely held belief that open RAN could only succeed if it was run on private telco cloud and hardware infrastructure. Public cloud, it was argued, could not adequately support RAN workloads, with their stringent requirements for compute capacity, low latency and reliability. It is almost as if the industry forgot that open RAN is not just a disaggregated, multi-vendor proposition – but inherently a cloud play.

There is now a growing number of proof points that it is possible to run RAN workloads at scale on the public cloud. These are, to date, hybrid deployments: part private and part public, and often also a hybrid of different virtualisation layers across private and public clouds.

Open RAN readiness of vendor platforms as presently deployed

Table of contents

• Executive summary
• Summary of telco cloud activity in 2024 and Q1 2025
• Deep dive: RAN and 5G SA on multicloud
• Regional overview

Related research

• Networks for AI: Segmenting the growth
• MWC 2025: A tech show, not a telecom one
• The telecom techco: The role of network cloud, automation and AI
• Telco cloud deployment tracker Q2 2024: Is AWS winning in hyperscale telco cloud?

If you are not a subscriber, enter your details below to download an extract of the report

Author

David Martin

Senior Analyst

David Martin has specialised on telco cloud at STL Partners since 2016, writing numerous strategic reports on different aspects of the topic. He also originated STL’s Telco Cloud Deployment Tracker: a major database of commercial telco cloud deployments by leading telcos worldwide. He is a telecoms analyst of around 25 years’ experience. David obtained a First Class degree in French and German at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he also pursued doctoral studies in French.