‘No Big Player Yet’ in ORAN for 5G, but ‘Lot of Customers,’ Says Keysight

making strategic investments in next-generation “semiconductor process technology” for 5G smartphones. Device design and development investments in 5G “continue to be strong, driven by the large-scale ramps in Asia,” said Nersesian. “As 5G deployment expands and ongoing innovations gain customer interest, we continue to see strength in R&D.” Keysight’s “end-to-end solutions for the 5G life cycle” for wired and wireless “are enabling the ecosystem to scale from product development to deployments,” he said. Its 5G platforms are in use at “all the leading test houses worldwide,” he said. That’s helping “rapid adoption” of open radio access network (ORAN) technologies, he said. The “bulk” of the 5G opportunity is “ahead of us, and millimeter-wave commercialization is “still in its early days,” said Nersesian. Keysight’s recently launched PathWave software suite “accelerates 5G design, simulation and verification workflows” that “speeds time to market,” he said. The 5G industry “continues to progress in a very strong manner,” said Satish Dhanasekaran, president of Keysight's Communications Solutions Group. “There have been some pushouts in some parts of the world, acceleration in others.” Keysight’s long-term 5G outlook “remains unchanged,” he said. “We look at it both from deployments and actually the number of devices that are going to be manufactured this year. So pretty strong from that point of view.” Keysight has “some strong drivers going” for its 5G business, including the ORAN toolkit it just launched “to enable developers there,” said Dhanasekaran. Though there isn't a “big player yet that's emerging” in ORAN, “there's a lot of customers,” he said. Dish Network bills itself as the only U.S. company building a 5G network to ORAN standards, and doing so from "a clean sheet of paper" (see 2008070046). The stock closed 6.8% lower Friday at $95.88.