The US Department of War has launched a dual strategy to disrupt the dominance of Ericsson and Nokia in the 6G radio access network market. The approach relies on open-source software development rather than the interface standardization efforts of previous generations. This marks a significant shift in how the Pentagon intends to foster competition in wireless infrastructure.
In one move, the department awarded a $28 million contract to a California-based company. This firm is developing a waveform technology designed to transform commercial cell towers into sensors capable of detecting drones. The contract utilizes Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) technology. This initiative proceeds without waiting for assistance from the established Nordic telecommunications giants.
Simultaneously, the Pentagon is supporting OCUDU, an open-source initiative hosted by the Linux Foundation. OCUDU aims to provide a publicly accessible, carrier-grade reference implementation for the Centralized Unit and Distributed Unit layers of the 5G and 6G network stack. These layers handle critical functions such as scheduling and resource management. The project is a joint effort between Virginia-based DeepSig and Ireland’s Software Radio Systems. DeepSig contributed its srsRAN codebase, while DeepSig also provided AI-native baseband algorithms.
Tom Rondeau, principal director of the Department of War’s FutureG program, has championed this strategy since March. He described the goal as creating "the Linux of RAN," allowing any developer to read, modify, or build products upon the code. This contrasts with Open RAN, which sought to diversify the market by standardizing interfaces between components. Despite nearly a decade of policy debate, Open RAN failed to break the duopoly. Data from Omdia indicates that Ericsson, Nokia, and Huawei controlled approximately 75% of the global RAN market through 2024, a figure unchanged from before the Open RAN era.
The failure of Open RAN highlighted that interface standardization was insufficient because proprietary software within the baseband remained locked by vendors. Smaller companies could connect to Ericsson and Nokia interfaces but could not alter the underlying code. OCUDU attacks this barrier directly by opening the code level. A British semiconductor firm, which recently separated from its Chinese corporate history, has emerged as one of the earliest validated partners for the initiative.
The reference stack is currently unproven at the scale of Tier-1 carriers. The Department of War’s three-year program aims to produce a minimum viable carrier-grade network solution by the end of its timeline. The most difficult engineering tests remain ahead for the project.
