Parallel Wireless Job Cuts Tied to Volatile Open RAN Market

Beleaguered open radio access network (RAN) vendor Parallel Wireless executives explained in a LinkedIn post that the firm’s recent job cuts were tied to a broader corporate strategy realignment focused on what it’s calling a “marathon” rather than a “sprint.” Beleaguered open radio access network (RAN) vendor Parallel Wireless executives explained in a LinkedIn post that the firm’s recent job cuts were tied to a broader corporate strategy realignment focused on what it’s calling a “marathon” rather than a “sprint.” In the post, CEO, Chairman, and co-founder Steve Papa writes that the “significant reset” of the company’s business plan will get the vendor back to a business model it had adopted prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. He indicates this includes the job cuts and “re-organizing roles” as well as “correcting wrong assumptions made in haste.” Published reports indicated that Parallel Wireless was laying off as many as half of its approximately 700 employees, which comes just months after it had said it planned to double its headcount by the end of this year. “While there are plenty of forced and unforced errors in our sprint that we could debate, they are part and parcel to any ambitious undertaking,” Papa added. Despite the job cuts, Papa writes that Parallel Wireless’ rollouts and RAN research and development work will continue. However, these will progress at a more modest pace due to operator needs and the market’s financial viability. “In recent years we have felt pressure from customers to ‘sprint’ to solve the hugely diverse technical needs for the wide variety of global mobile networks – presumably, this was from the global 5G enthusiasm,” Papa explains. “But in a Covid constrained environment the realities of the longer times to develop and introduce new technology into the network became increasingly clear, and we mutually concluded with MNOs that instead of a sprint we should be managing for a marathon. A marathon where we first focus on a self-sustaining business for key segments of the industry and broaden from there.” Papa added that the company would be releasing more information on its efforts in the coming weeks. The executive’s sentiment echoed recent comments from Rahul Chandra, CEO and President of NEC’s Blue Danube Systems, in an interview with SDxCentral. Chandra cited four challenges toward broader open RAN adoption including supply chain constraints, the need for telecom operators to be more inclusive of new RAN vendors to help drive equipment efficiencies, integration challenges, and evolution of the ecosystem. He noted these were challenges that open RAN vendors were bearing the brunt in trying to overcome. “It is up to us to prove that out and the more the ecosystem evolves I think it is happening and will happen,” Chandra said. “Our view of the market is we’re not in it for the short haul. We see this all the way going into almost a 2030 timeframe. But we think the mass-scale deployment will be probably in a couple of years, so going into sort of late 2023, 2024, maybe even 2025 timeframe. We’re certainly not expecting that this year you’re going to have massive deployments. So we’re in it for the long haul.”