Perspectives

September 2025 The passage of the OBBB Act and the demise of Boost Mobile instantiate the beginning of a new and bigger U.S. open RAN agenda

September 2025

Abstract

by Stéphane Téral
September 5, 2025

Let’s be clear: open RAN remains a top U.S. priority but with a new twist that can make it bigger and better for the ecosystem. We expected a BIG change in the U.S. telecom policies between the previous and the current administration, here are 2 related to the future of open RAN. On the one hand, I guess you heard about the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) that cuts the remaining funding for the NTIA's Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund. The bill rescinded the unallocated $850M from the $1.5B fund, which was initially provided by the CHIPS and Science Act. Nobody is talking about it, but it may damage the mushrooming U.S. open RAN ecosystem. In fact, after checking several recipients during the summer, I found that many were happy for now to live on NOFO2 (second Notice of Funding Opportunity) while a new U.S. open RAN agenda is being developed.

On the other hand, the August 28 AT&T/Echostar deal leading to the decommissioning of Boost Mobile’s shiny cutting edge multivendor open vRAN network came as the icing on the cake! It’s worth remembering that in 2023, the NTIA awarded Boost Mobile a $50M grant to establish its Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment in Cheyenne, Wyoming, which opened less than a year ago. With the world’s 1st truly all-domain multivendor network, Boost Mobile established itself as the U.S. open RAN poster child.

Both cases are totally linked together and result from radically divergent views between the previous and the current U.S. administration. Meanwhile, we keep hearing that the current administration remains 100% committed to a “Made in USA” Open RAN ecosystem so the question is: what is it? Certainly, a very different plan. One sure thing though is that none of these events signal the death of open RAN but rather a new direction and reinforces our belief that the open RAN ecosystem is ripe for more consolidation than ever.



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