AT&T has begun testing Cloud RAN with Ericsson, extending the Open RAN program that made the Swedish vendor its primary radio access network supplier under a deal announced in late 2023 and reported at around $14 billion over five years. The tests mark the next phase of a network overhaul that AT&T has framed as one of the largest Open RAN deployments by a single operator.

The move matters for practitioners for a simple reason. Cloud RAN shifts baseband processing from purpose-built hardware to cloud-native platforms, which changes how operators plan capacity, deploy software updates and integrate third-party radios. For AT&T, it converts the radio access network from a hardware refresh into a continuing software program.

What does the Cloud RAN testing change?

The trials sit on top of an already-substantial swap program. Under the 2023 agreement, Ericsson committed to supplying Open RAN-compliant radios for a large share of AT&T's mobile network, with deployment running toward the end of the decade. Cloud RAN testing signals that AT&T now wants the baseband side to follow the same open, virtualized path as the radios.

For network teams, that progression has practical consequences:

• Baseband capacity can scale in data-center-style increments rather than chassis-by-chassis hardware purchases.
• Software releases can follow continuous integration cycles rather than long upgrade windows.
• The operator gains a clearer route to pooling processing across sites, which matters most in dense urban areas.

Ericsson's commercial pitch centers on flexibility and total cost of ownership. The actual gains will depend on integration work, transport latency and how quickly AT&T's operations teams adapt to cloud-style management tools. Vendor claims of transformation should be read against deployment evidence, not roadmap slides.

Why the Ericsson relationship keeps expanding

AT&T chose Ericsson in 2023 over incumbent suppliers including Nokia, and that decision reshaped vendor positions across the North American market. Nokia responded by cutting costs and redirecting its radio business toward other operators and regions. The Cloud RAN tests extend the same logic deeper into the network stack.

The regulatory and standards context matters here. Open RAN interfaces are maturing through the O-RAN Alliance, and US policy has pushed operators toward diversifying vendor supply chains. AT&T's program gives the approach scale in a Tier 1 market, which in turn gives the O-RAN specifications a demanding reference deployment.

Cloud RAN also aligns with where the broader industry is heading. Operators in Asia and Europe have trialed virtualized RAN with mixed results, often finding that performance parity with dedicated hardware takes longer than vendors suggest. AT&T's trials will test whether a large US operator can move faster.

What comes next

AT&T has not disclosed timelines for moving Cloud RAN from trials into commercial deployment, nor has it published throughput or coverage results from the tests. The company has previously said it expects the Ericsson-based Open RAN build to reach a substantial share of its wireless traffic before the end of the decade, with deployment work continuing through roughly 2029.

For rivals, the trials are a signal that AT&T intends to keep consolidating its RAN strategy around one primary partner and a cloud-native architecture, rather than splitting the network across competing stacks. Vendors excluded from the original deal now face a narrower window to win work as the program deepens.

Watch for two indicators in coming months: trial results quantified in throughput or capacity terms, and any AT&T statement converting the tests into a commercial rollout schedule. Either would turn a vendor partnership story into a concrete deployment story with numbers practitioners can benchmark against.