Service Provider Solutions Div. Mobile operators worldwide are looking for alternatives to traditional, monolithic 5G suppliers, particularly in the RAN. They recognize that 4G’s proprietary architectures and best of suite models don’t work for 5G, which is about scalability, speed, and innovation. Several Tier 1 operators have responded to the bottleneck of the RAN evolution by investing in openness to spur a healthier supplier ecosystem, better economics, and more innovation. With operators calling for openness, innovation and access to an ecosystem, NEC’s leadership in the 5G RAN stands out. Reinventing 5G RAN’s economics Though other parts of operators’ networks have adopted virtualization and openness, the RAN has remained an oligopoly rooted in proprietary systems. As consolidations have narrowed the 5G market, there have become too few viable, large scale 5G suppliers and not enough openness among them to help accelerate the pace of innovation or the move toward scalable and cloud-native network services delivery.