The CTO of T-Mobile US, Neville Ray (pictured) has raised doubts about the management of O-RAN.

“I’m not going to go and chase a bunch of capital efficiencies which I’m not sure exist at this point,” Ray told an investors conference.
Although T-Mobile’s largest shareholder, Deutsche Telekom is a member of the O-RAN Alliance, T-Mobile has remained the only major US operator not to join the alliance.
“Who is ultimately responsible for the systems integration?” asked Ray, “whose neck do you choke when things go wrong? I buy a solution from an Ericsson or a Nokia or a Samsung, it is warrantied. I have one neck to choke. If something goes wrong, I know where to go.”

T-Mobile is not adopting O-RAN in any of  around 2,000 new cell sites it adds every month, said Ray.
Ray pointed to uncertainty over who ensures R&D alignment across the O-RAN ecosystem and where operators should go to resolve network issues when multiple vendors are involved.