Charter Communications has selected Nokia to provide key products needed in trial markets as the cable company looks to offload leased MVNO usage of Verizon Communications’s wireless network onto its own infrastructure using Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) technology. 

In its announcement Monday, Dallas-based Nokia didn't reveal the monetary value of its big customer win. But it did say that Charter is buying radio access network (RAN) technology from its AirScale equipment portfolio.

These products include strand-mounted radios for CBRS, baseband units, and a newly developed CBRS-based strand-mount small cells all-in-one portfolio. The strand-mounted small cells will leverage Charter's existing DOCSIS wireline infrastructure and negate the need for the MSO to build additional cell sites. 

According to a report issued last year by MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett, the strand-mounted approach can save as much as 90% vs. traditional small cells because they can be hung between poles, nixing the need for permits, a separate power source, fiber backhaul and expensive labor costs for things such as fiber splicing.  

Charter spent $465 million nearly three years ago to purchase 21 CBRS priority access licenses. At the time, the company said that 80% of Spectrum Mobile traffic was being delivered over its Wi-Fi network. But the aim was to drive even more wireless traffic away from pricey leased Verizon network usage that eats into margins. 

Spectrum Mobile is currently the fastest-growing wireless service in the U.S. with nearly 6 million service lines. Moffett said he expects the wireless service to account for more than 7% of Charter's revenue by 2025. 

“Incorporating Nokia’s innovative 5G technology into our advanced wireless converged network will help us ensure that Spectrum customers in areas with a high concentration of mobile traffic continue to receive superior mobile connectivity, including the nation’s fastest wireless speeds,” Justin Colwell, executive VP of connectivity technology at Charter, said in a statement. 

“This news builds on our more than 20-year relationship working with Charter to enhance its network,” Shaun McCarthy, president of North America sales at Nokia, added. "We are excited to expand its current trial to additional select metropolitan markets in the U.S., enabling an enhanced user experience for Spectrum Mobile subscribers. This win strengthens Nokia’s leadership position in the MSO space for 5G wireless deployments.”

The newly-formed Open Radio Access Network [ORAN] Policy Coalition is urging the FCC to use its implementation of the Secure and Trusted Networks Act to promote open, interoperable, software solutions for a secure 5G supply chain.  

Related: House Republicans Praise New 5G Security Coalition 

Congress basically mandated the FCC to do what it was already planning to, but will also fund the process, which the FCC definitely needed. 

Related: Commerce Hits Huawei with New Restrictions 

The idea both in an FCC item that preceded the bill, and in the bill, is to prevent government broadband subsidy to be used by any carrier planning to use suspect tech (at the outset the FCC proposed putting Chinese telecoms Huawei and ZTE in that category) in their broadband buildouts, as well as to come up with a way, and the money, to fund "rip and replace" or "offramp and replace" that technology from existing networks. 

At the same time, the FCC is looking at open Radio Access Networks, which "softwire" as it were rather than hardwire network architecture using radio waves rather than physical connections, thus virtualizing more of the network and making it more software dependent, a space the U.S. dominates, rather than hardware-dependent, where China, and particularly Huawei, dominate. 

That is the coalition's sweet spot, obviously. 

"[I]t is a national security imperative that U.S. communications networks provide secure and reliable connectivity," the coalition told the FCC in comments on its implementation of the Secure and Trusted Networks Act, pointing out that open and interoperable RAN solutions are ready to be the replace in "rip and replace." 

The coalition wants the FCC to develop a list of categories of equipment and services that includes open RAN and virtual solutions and avoid picking "winners and losers," which it arguably would be if it went with a list of specific technologies and suppliers rather than categories. 

The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) also asked the FCC to avoid picking tech winners and losers, and to do so by using categories rather than lists of specific tech. 

The coalition currently comprises Airspan, Altiostar, AT&T, AWS, Cisco, CommScope, Dell, DISH Network, Facebook, Fujitsu, Google, IBM, Intel, Juniper Networks, Mavenir, Microsoft, NEC Corporation, NewEdge Signal Solutions, NTT, Oracle, Parallel Wireless, Qualcomm, Rakuten Mobile, Samsung Electronics America, Telefónica, US Ignite, Verizon, VMWare, Vodafone, World Wide Technology, and XCOM-Labs.