Verizon launched more than 130,000 O-RAN Alliance-compliant radios from Samsung as part of its 15,000 virtual RAN (vRAN) sites, but remained silent on when it would move to open RAN.

The operator recently revealed its roadmap for 2024 included working on the interoperability of multi-vendor open RAN equipment, because the bulk of its deployments so far have been in a single vendor setting.

Trials conducted in 2023 proved the viability of running open RAN on a live network using equipment from a single vendor.

At the time, SVP of technology planning Adam Koeppe said it was possible the trials could lead to open RAN deployments by end-2023.

In November 2023, Verizon executive Joe Russo told Mobile World Live the operator’s open RAN efforts were “slow but developing”.

Verizon began using Samsung vRAN equipment several years ago as a stepping-stone to open RAN.

It is currently laboratory testing Ericsson vRAN products.

Koeppe previously noted Verizon’s deployment of C-Band spectrum was the catalyst for using vRAN software.

It aims to have deployed vRAN equipment across 20,000 sites by 2025.