Vodafone & Intel to build new cell-tower chips

I think this is the first time in forever I've seen someone actively engaging Intel to develop a custom chipset architecture. It's not any of the usual suspects either, not Apple, not Samsung, not even Amazon or Microsoft. Nope, it's Vodafone who are investing like the clappers in a new open standard that will allow the mixing of technologies on mobile phone towers called "Open RAN". Their partnership with Intel will pave the way for hardware providers to better integrate with the standard and very likely make them a nice chunk of change in the process. The cellular market is dominated by the vendor lock-in style hardware of Ericsson, Nokia and Aussie banned Huwaei, migrating to the new Open RAN infrastructure would allow the likes of Vodafone and other telecommunication providers to pick and choose hardware from anyone. Naturally uptake has been slow due to the manufacturers not wanting to share, but a number of successful tests have been completed in real world scenarios and the first 4G calls taking place using Open RAN in Romania.