Open-RAN: Emerging Trends and Impact on the Telecom Sector in the Digital Age

Abstract

This study examines Open Radio Access Network (Open-RAN) technology in depth, employing a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative surveys of 50 industry professionals with qualitative analysis of 18 commercial deployments. It examines how Open-RAN can transform the telecommunications industry. The study reveals that Open-RAN significantly enhances network performance, achieving 31.6% higher throughput and 25% lower latency compared to standard RAN systems. It also cuts operating expenses by 20% by using several vendors and virtualization. However, 68% of the professionals questioned said that there are still major problems, such as interoperability issues in setups with several vendors and cybersecurity threats that come with decentralized components. The study makes three important contributions to the state of the art: (1) it shows that Open-RAN does improve per formance in real-world 5G deployments, (2) it creates a list of interoperability barriers with suggested standardization metrics, and (3) it changes the way modern society think about security for RAN Intelligent Controllers and xApps by moving toward zero-trust security frameworks. These results fill in an important gap between theoretical models and real-world situations, giving telecom operators, legislators, and standards organizations useful information. Some areas of future study include finding the best ways to save energy, testing for 6G readiness, and making rules that are the same across borders to deal with geopolitical fragmentation. This study lays the groundwork for scalable and long-lasting Open-RAN adoption in next-generation networks by combining technological, economic, and security aspects.

Received: 28 April 2025 | Revised: 18 August 2025 | Accepted: 23 January 2026

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing does not apply to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Author Contribution Statement

Gabriel Silva-Atencio: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.