South Africa’s mobile operator MTN Group has selected 5 partners to launch an open radio access network in Africa to expand 4G and 5G services more quickly and cheaply by end 2021. In the past, network equipment from Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei was largely proprietary, making it difficult to mix. But U.S. restrictions hit Huawei’s ability to source chips and sped the adoption of openRAN technology. MTN, the largest telecommunications operator in Africa, first rolled out open-source technology in 2019 to improve rural coverage. It has 277.9 million subscribers across 11 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Source: Reuters
