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The global mobile supply chain has become increasingly limited, with high entry costs leaving operators dependent on a handful of vendors. As we have seen, there are political moves to change supplier models, but there are other industry initiatives that could also have a lasting impact on the ecosystem.

Standards are designed to be replicable; that’s to say, any vendor should be able to follow a template and develop a solution that can be deployed in the appropriate network domain or as part of infrastructure.

They have delivered universal mobile access across multiple generations of technology, which have gradually converged on a single template for the realization of 5G. Again, this is very positive for the market, as it allows manufacturers and suppliers to build solutions, while enabling operators to follow a clear path toward service delivery.

However, there is a complication: standards can also limit choice and have led to unintended consequences. There are several reasons for this. First, standards can create challenges for market entry for new actors; it is not easy to implement, test, and validate established standards.

Second, it is expensive to ensure continuing compliance with what are often moving targets, subject to regular evolution and iteration. Third, they can increase dependency on a small number of suppliers. It can be argued that standards which, on the one hand enable interoperability, have actually become a barrier to an open and competitive market.

The barriers to entry emerge because it is extremely costly to develop appropriate solutions that implement the desired functionality. Moreover, operators insist on strict performance requirements, partly to meet customer expectations and partly to meet the needs of regulators and law enforcement agencies [19]. While fulfilling the requirements of a standard is necessary to enter the market, it is far from sufficient. A new entrant must ensure that they can meet the criteria defined by target operator customers, which proves a challenge for many.

As a result, the number of vendors has declined, through consolidation and acquisition – or even withdrawal from sectors of the market – leaving operators to:

choose from a relatively limited menu of products from a small number of suppliers [19].

Numerous analysts and vendors have reached similar conclusions.

Thus, while interoperability and multi‐vendor strategies have been goals for many operators, in practice, few have achieved this, relying on a small handful of suppliers. Dependence on a single supplier increases risk and exposure to the shifting sands of political change.

This has not gone unrecognized. The flaws in the current model have led to new initiatives that seek to change the situation, a process that began long before political tensions were wound up in 2020. For example, the open radio access network Alliance, or “O‐RAN Alliance,” is an effort to:

clearly define requirements and help build a supply chain ecosystem to realise its objectives [20].

The Alliance, which was launched in 2018, seeks to:

drive new levels of openness in the radio access network of next generation wireless systems [20].

This is significant because the RAN accounts for up to 70% of a mobile operator’s total infrastructure [21].

Others, such as the Open RAN Policy Coalition, pursue similar goals, aiming to:

promote policies that will advance the adoption of open and interoperable solutions in the Radio Access Network (RAN) as a means to create innovation, spur competition and expand the supply chain for advanced wireless technologies including 5G [22].

In this context, the term “open” is used to denote the opening of interfaces:

While 3GPP defines the new flexible standards… the O‐RAN Alliance specifies reference designs consisting of virtualised network elements using open and standardised interfaces [23].

As such, current “open” initiatives are tightly bound to 3GPP standards [24]. They do not seek to replace 3GPP standards, in other words, but rather to augment them. So, while there may, in time, be divergence from 3GPP efforts, such divergence is not the raison d’être for such organizations. They are focused on diversity and innovation, not a radical new approach to standards.

That’s because 3GPP defines functionality, while implementation has been the preserve of the vendor. By enabling further decomposition and promoting off‐the‐shelf hardware and processing solutions, it is hoped that more stakeholders can deliver discrete components, ultimately resulting in a more diverse supply chain – each element could be said to represent a lower barrier of entry.

The recent policy decisions by national governments that we have already discussed highlight the importance of promoting such efforts, and there is growing eagerness among the operator community to adopt products that result and which reduce dependency on a small number of powerful vendors.

In summary, 3GPP standards have had the perverse effect of limiting supply to the operator community by creating difficult barriers for new entrants to surmount, but initiatives that seek to break this model are gaining ground and are likely to lead to a more diverse vendor community – which is increasingly politically desirable to de‐risk supply chains and to avoid dependence on HRVs.

Moves are afoot to find alternative actors and even new national champions to deliver critical infrastructure. Some also seek early deployment of 6G, which may end reliance on 3GPP, as we have seen. And, other bodies could also create new open standards that can be adopted by the industry at large or by discrete sectors.

From where else may such pressures come? Another avenue to explore is the nature of 5G itself. There are aspects of 5G that move beyond traditional models and that suggest a future non‐3GPP‐based approach. We shall explore this briefly.