Charles Lyons-Burt
Open radio access networks, a.k.a. open RAN, are communications network standards that allow for more interoperability and customization as well as participation from a variety of vendors rather than a single, dominating provider. They are a point of passion for telecom enthusiasts, who are feeling validated that open RAN seems to be a top concern of the new Trump administration — which is consistent with the president’s first term in office some years ago.
“In the first President Trump administration…there was big push in the White House and there was a commitment from Honorable [John] Sherman, the previous [Department of Defense] CIO, to ensure that open RAN was built into our overall strategy. And since then, we’ve actually developed an open RAN strategy that—God willing we get our money and don’t get cut—you’ll actually start to see more deployments of open RAN come out,” said Juan Ramírez, who leads the Pentagon’s 5G Cross-Functional Team, at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 5G Summit on Thursday.
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Ramírez said that in addition to Trump prioritizing open RAN, Leslie Beavers, the current acting DOD CIO, has been very supportive of all of his team’s endeavors. (Notably, Ramírez, Beavers and the aforementioned Sherman are all winners of the prestigious Wash100 Award, a high-watermark achievement in government contracting.) Further still, there have been solicitations from the Army that “tout” open RAN and at Fort Bliss, Ramírez said the first Brownfield integration of open RAN systems is occurring at the Texas base.
Indo-Pacific Ramifications
Framing it as an obvious fact known to everyone, Ramírez said that “INDOPACOM is the AOR of interest right now”—mainly to do with a growing rivalry between the U.S. and China. The DOD official said the military is interested in “what can you do to strengthen our communication and networks there…to continue to have a warfighter advantage.”
Another keynote speaker at the 5G Summit, DOD 5G/FutureG Office Deputy Principal Director Marlan Macklin, was surprised and excited to hear President Trump bring up open RAN in his talks with Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru earlier this month.
“I find it very interesting and encouraging that at that level, that joint leader statement had a reference to cooperation on open RAN in the Indo-Pacific and rolling it out in third countries which is an incredible signal, at least for offices like ours that care a lot about open RAN and [are] trying to innovate and continue to build on those successes,” Macklin stated.
Macklin’s career has been consistently concerned with international partnerships, so he’s particularly attuned to how matters of 5G (and next-gen), network connectivity and open RAN are playing out on the global stage. Working in lockstep with foreign companies has been “a really powerful thing for our success,” Macklin said, so when he heard about the Japanese-American conversation, it captured his attention.
“The question that leaves me with is, are there any interesting industrial relationships that we should know about, that would be helpful in advancing some of these objectives, that would be helpful in informing where we apply our limited resources and how we partner with [other] countries,” he said. “I can’t emphasize enough: any of the successes that we’ve had…has [sic] also been driven by those industrial relationships.”
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