Recommendation 5

The Government should support Open RAN and other efforts to drive the adoption of open standards and greater interoperability. While the success of Open RAN is not guaranteed, the Government should encourage the deployment of Open RAN to ensure that the UK is not behind others in deploying this technology. However, it must continually ensure that support for these efforts is consistent not only with increasing vendor diversity but also with improving the overall security of the UK’s telecommunications networks. Further, the Government must not assume that open 5G market diversification and wider lessons for critical and emerging technologies 49 standards and interoperability will inevitably be adopted nor that they will have the desired effect, and should pursue a range of measures designed to support market diversification and increase security.