Dell Targets 5G Market By Creating Open Source Hardware, US Government Strongly Supports

Dell develops open source hardware for 5G technology. (photo: doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA - Head of Dell Technologies, Michael Dell said on Wednesday October 13 that he sees an opportunity to play a key role in the global rollout of 5G networks with new technologies that make specialized equipment unnecessary.

The shift towards an Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) allows telecommunications operators to use software to perform network functions on standard computing hardware.

The technology has attracted interest from the US government because it will allow networks to be created with offerings from American companies such as Dell, Microsoft Corp and others, rather than solely from industry-specific providers such as Nokia or China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.

In an interview, Dell said interest from former President Donald Trump's administration in positioning technology as a Western-led counterbalance to Huawei had "completely carried over" to President Joe Biden's administration. "This is really a bipartisan thing," Dell said, as quoted by Reuters.

Dell makes computing hardware that goes into a new style of networking and has secured deals to help DISH Network Corp in the United States and Vodafone and Orange in Europe build 5G networks with the technology.

On Wednesday, Dell Technologies announced software to help operators manage computers used in the new network, targeting a release in November.

But most of the new O-RAN networks in Europe remain a testing ground, and DISH is a 5G upstart building the network from scratch and not an established player. Some telecom analysts believe that the new open technology will not be dominant at least for other generations of networks.

Dell wants to accelerate change by testing and powering most new technologies for wider use.

"There is a desire in many quarters for a Western champion to bring all of this together on a grand scale," said Dell, noting that his company has also been in talks with governments in the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia as well as Japan and Western Europe.

"It's got to be a big company that has the supply and service chains and the financial weight to make all of that happen and deliver it," he said.