Mavenir loses open RAN zealot John Baker amid wider job cuts

　　To executives on the trade show circuit, John Baker has been one of the most familiar faces in the industry ever since the days when open RAN was just a bawling toddler. As senior vice president of business development for Mavenir, Baker was an outspoken advocate of the fledging concept long before Ericsson joined the faith and seemingly became the world's biggest open RAN vendor. But he has now quit Mavenir amid reports of wider job cuts as the US company struggles to remain afloat.

　　The circumstances surrounding Baker's departure remain unclear and he did not respond to a LinkedIn approach, but his exit was confirmed earlier today by Mavenir after a tip-off by sources. "We can acknowledge that John Baker has left Mavenir," said a spokesperson by email. "Furthermore, Mavenir continues to invest in open RAN to meet our customer requirements and any changes being made in the RAN BU [business unit] is line with our strategic long-term plans."

　　Baker joined Mavenir in 2017 from a senior management role at Spirent Communications and previously spent eight years at CommScope. The long-serving industry executive began his telecom career in the 1980s at Vodafone, according to his LinkedIn profile, before joining Nokia as a general manager. For anyone interested in open RAN (standing for radio access network), he was the go-to person at Mavenir.

　　Sources have also indicated that Mavenir is cutting a substantial number of RAN engineering jobs in the US and India. Mavenir did not address those reports directly in its emailed response to Light Reading, but they come several weeks after the company was downgraded by ratings agencies.

　　In October, S&P Global said Mavenir appeared to have insufficient liquidity to repay the outstanding balance on a $133 million loan that matures in January, with just $17 million in cash on its balance sheet and access to a revolving credit facility of $32 million. Predicting a free operating cash flow deficit of $30 million over the subsequent six months, S&P said it expected Mavenir to default or be forced into restructuring.

　　Since early 2021, Mavenir has raised about $830 million in private equity funds, counting Siris Capital and Koch Industries as its two largest backers. But there has been little to show for its efforts in a shrinking RAN sector. Overall market revenues fell from about $45 billion to $40 billion in 2023, according to Omdia, a Light Reading sister company. At the midpoint of its forecast, it expects sales to fall another $5 billion this year.

　　Losing the faith

　　Open RAN is essentially a new set of interfaces allowing operators to combine vendors at the same mobile site. Previously, telcos would have had to take a pre-integrated set of RAN products from the same vendor's system. Baker originally hoped Mavenir could slot in as a software specialist, connecting its baseband technology to other companies' radios. But the idea has not quickly taken off. And while big telcos are demanding compliance with open RAN specifications, many have shown they would still rather deal with a limited number of suppliers in what some analysts are calling "single vendor open RAN."

　　This and the difficulty of finding Chinese partners for low-cost radios ultimately prompted Mavenir to expand into hardware production and systems integration. But as much as $500 million of its funds have gone into research and development (R&D) for radio manufacturing alone, CEO Pardeep Kohli previously told Light Reading. "Despite its cost-saving initiatives, Mavenir must maintain high R&D spending to avoid harming its competitive position," said S&P in its October note.

　　Mavenir would need a 1.4% share of today's market just to cover this $500 million expense in a single year. Yet data from Omdia shows the world's seven largest RAN vendors accounted for as much as 97.3% of last year's market. That put Mavenir among numerous smaller players splitting the other 2.7%.

　　Shortly after Light Reading reported in November on the S&P downgrade and other difficulties, a Reuters story appeared saying that Mavenir was in talks to receive a $1 billion injection of funds from Saudi Aramco in exchange for a significant minority stake in the business. But there has been no subsequent update, and a funding move would look counterintuitive given the current market circumstances.

　　Fire-breathing Baker

　　Unfortunately, the loss of Baker along with other engineers could make big telcos even more wary about giving work to Mavenir. While the company is highly regarded by telcos such as Vodafone for product competitiveness, its predicament is likely to make prospective customers worry about its chances of survival.

　　Today, Mavenir's biggest deal appears to be its contract with Dish Network, the company building a "greenfield" mobile network in the US. It failed to land any major contracts in India's 5G market, despite a marketing push, and lost out to Samsung when Vodafone chose its Huawei replacement for the UK.

　　Potential opportunities, however, include Vodafone's much bigger tender for tens of thousands of RAN sites across Europe and Africa, the results of which are due to be announced soon. Earlier this month, AT&T also revealed that Mavenir would supply some radios for its ongoing 5G deployment, led by Ericsson.

　　Many onlookers are skeptical, though. AT&T is heavily reliant on Ericsson for that 5G rollout and appears to see Fujitsu, the only other named radio vendor, as an option for small cells rather than macro sites. There will be suspicion that Mavenir's name has been added to the vendor line-up merely to give the project more of a multivendor appearance.

　　Years ago, Baker's eyes used to glow red when he talked about Ericsson and its stubborn resistance to openness. Whether he truly believes in its dramatic conversion is uncertain. AT&T's promotion of the $14 billion contract with Ericsson under the banner of open RAN has silenced executives within smaller vendors, subjects who might once have risked offense before the king's position was made clear. A Baker now on the outside of Mavenir might be ready to breathe fire once again.