AT&T migrated a recent open radio access network (RAN) first outdoors, completing an Open RAN (O-RAN) call using third-party radios running over the carrier’s commercial network, a network that is quickly migrating from legacy Nokia equipment to new open RAN equipment from Ericsson.

The call was placed using radios from Fujitsu’s 1Finity division running on Ericsson’s 6672 baseband RAN processor. The feat comes less than three months after AT&T touted a lab-based version of the call.

AT&T trumpeted the latest accomplishment in a blog post, noting: “This multivendor solution demonstrates the interoperability and flexibility Open RAN brings to our network, underscoring the critical role of collaboration in developing open and programmable networks that can transform the industry.”

The successful call furthers AT&T’s ambitious Open RAN push announced in late 2023. That announcement called for the carrier to spend around $14 billion over a five-year period to deploy Open RAN equipment with the goal of having 70 percent of its wireless network traffic flowing through its open RAN platform by the end of 2026.

That initial announcement included a somewhat controversial decision to rely on Ericsson for the basis of the deployment, as the vendor had at that time not been viewed as a proponent of O-RAN technology. However, the vendor has since bolstered its O-RAN work and has a long history of working within AT&T’s network architecture.

Ericsson is providing its Intelligent Automation Platform (EIAP), which is the vendor’s service management and orchestration (SMO) platform. The EIAP will span across multiple domains, including the service level where it can control the cloud RAN and traditional RAN functions, the radios, and the hardware.

Fujitsu was also named as the initial open RAN vendor to the program, with a focus on deploying its open RAN equipment running on top of the Ericsson platform. Fujitsu has gained considerable open RAN opportunities from its ongoing work with operators like NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, and Boost Mobile in the US, and it has an optical networking legacy with AT&T.

Fujitsu recently formed its 1Finity operating company to oversee network-related operations. This includes the legacy Fujitsu Telecom Networks, Fujitsu Network Service Engineering, Mobile Techno, and Fujitsu Network Communications.

AT&T late last year provided more color on the depth of that collaboration by noting the Fujitsu radios were designed with a lower profile that can be attached to existing utility and light poles in dense, urban environments. The carrier, late last year, also added Mavenir as an approved open RAN radio vendor.

Ericsson-for-Nokia swap continues

One name that continues not to be on AT&T’s approved open RAN radio list is Nokia. The vendor has been a long-time equipment provider to AT&T, but so far has not been included in those Open RAN plans, with a greater indignity of having AT&T actively removing Nokia radios from its network.

The carrier noted it has “completed nearly 40 percent of our overall swap program from Nokia radios to Ericsson.”

AT&T CEO John Stankey earlier this year said that the swap was unlocking new service opportunities for the carrier that could see it lean more heavily in the near-term on those enhanced 5G assets in favor of new fiber broadband deployments.

“That conversion as we go into those geographies opens up territory where we, because we had not done the modernization to the level we like with all of our spectrum assets and the most modern equipment, they typically were not open for fixed-wireless access [FWA], and that has opened up some footprint that will continue to open up as we go through that over the course of the next couple of years,” Stankey said during the carrier’s first-quarter earnings call. “And I would also tell you, on the margin, we're seeing better performance off of that investment than what we would have anticipated.”

Stankey explained that the operator expected to gain some network performance advantage as it was gaining benefits from a single-vendor platform and the ability to integrate more of its diverse spectrum holdings, “and those are helping.”

“We've also been doing the network as a living, breathing thing,” Stankey added. “We've gotten better at yield and traffic management in some ways that we can use some of those efficiencies back against the network in places that maybe we hadn't anticipated two years ago that have opened up some opportunity.”

EchoStar spectrum finds thousands of homes

AT&T’s latest network update also stated the carrier has added some of the mid-band spectrum it acquired from EchoStar to more than 15,000 cell sites. This update is delivering “increased speeds and a greatly improved wireless experience for our customers.”

Stankey earlier this week had touted similar progress, noting that the deployment of that 3.45 GHz spectrum was under a “short-term management lease,” and that the carrier expects to have parts of that spectrum deployed to “cell sites covering nearly two-thirds of the US population by mid-November.”

That EchoStar deal included 30 megahertz of nationwide 3.45 GHz mid-band spectrum and approximately 20 megahertz of nationwide 600 MHz low-band spectrum in an all-cash transaction. Stankey noted during a call shortly after that deal was announced that it expected a quick turnaround on deploying the mid-band spectrum, with most of that geared toward bolstering its 5G network capacity in support of its Internet Air fixed-wireless access (FWA) services.

“This should position us to further expand the availability of Internet Air in our sales channels in 2026,” Stankey said during the Q3 call.

Some analysts noted that the price AT&T paid for that spectrum was a multibillion-dollar premium over the perceived value of that spectrum, a notion Stankey said was basically the price of doing business.

“I'm well aware that what we're paying is more than what Dish paid for spectrum at auction, but that's not a new and startling fact,” Stankey said during a conference call following the deal’s unveiling. “There's speculators who go in and buy spectrum all the time and hold it for a number of years and then ultimately come back in and sell it for more than what they bought it for, and that's the nature of auctions and what occurs.”