Japan, US Cooperating on ORAN, but Many Challenges Remain

Japan and the U.S. are working together on open radio access networks as an alternative to the limited choice of network gear from non-Chinese providers, especially Huawei, speakers said during a Hudson Institute webinar Wednesday. Experts said many challenges remain to scaling up ORAN to make it more attractive to carriers.

“The importance of ORAN comes from supply chain resilience,” said Yutaka Kitagami, deputy director-general-International Economic Affairs in Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. “If we depend on one vendor for communications networks, of course we have supply chain risks,” he said: “There could be too much dependence on not only one company but also one nation. That’s not so good.” Open networks can also “promote innovation” and lead to lower costs, he said.

Japan offered tax incentives to encourage use of ORAN, Kitagami said. Japan and the U.S. also formed the Global Digital Connectivity Partnership last year, which focused in part on 5G open networks, he said.

Chinese competitors are offering prices some international providers find hard to resist, said Riley Walters, Hudson Japan Chair deputy director. “In the current environment, some foreign companies with their government’s support, can underbid global infrastructure contracts by as much as 60%,” he said. “With that kind of cost savings, it’s no surprise that some countries are willing to [accept] the security risks that come with these cheaper networks,” he said.

ORAN “will hopefully drive down the cost of providing secure, transparent and market-competitive alternatives,” Walters said. If countries like the U.S., Japan, Australia and India are unable to “scale up” use of ORAN “there are fewer options as we try to compete with foreign vendors abroad,” he said.

5G networks themselves aren’t the target of bad actors, but what will ride on the networks is, said Melissa Griffith, Wilson Center senior program associate. “We see a real diversification of what our telecommunications networks can support and what 5G proponents hope they will support in the future,” she said. As more uses come online, including to manage the energy grid, agriculture, transportation and healthcare, the network becomes “a potential single point of failure,” she said. That means networks are becoming “a prime target for malicious actors,” she said.

Communications networks, starting with the telegraph, have always been a target for espionage, Griffith said: “What’s different about 5G networks is the complexity and the amount of data. … That makes them a wonderful target, a kind of single point where you can gather a lot of information for malicious actors.” 5G networks are faster than past networks and everyone loves speed, she said. “It’s also really wonderful for malicious code,” she said.

ORAN is gaining support because of the risks posed by the limited number of vendors of traditional network gear, Griffith said. “Technical standards have never been particularly sexy as a broader kind of political discourse,” but ORAN “has very much become so” in response to security concerns, she said.

There still haven’t been any “large scale” demonstrations that ORAN works as advertised, said Thomas Duesterberg, Hudson senior fellow. “What we need to take the next step going forward is to have successful, large-scale applications that prove the economics, prove the technology and prove the security,” he said. ORAN could mean 30%-40% reductions in operating costs and investments “but I think that remains to be seen,” he said.

Japan is a leader, with Rakuten and NTT DoCoMo launching open networks, Duesterberg said. If Dish Network succeeds in launching a national wireless network using ORAN technology, “that will be an excellent boost for adoption,” he said. Dish said last month its mobile 5G network is up and running in Las Vegas (see 2202240039).