The UK and Japan have announced closer collaboration on addressing telecom supply chain issues and developing new technologies such as 6G and OpenRAN.
The UK's digital infrastructure minister and Japan's deputy minister of internal affairs have agreed on a number of joint initiatives aimed at "reducing the world's over-reliance on small businesses." Number of providers building and maintaining telecommunications networks.
The agreement between the UK's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) is clearly aimed at encouraging more information sharing between industry and academia as well as collaboration in research and development between the two countries. It also contains some nods to diversify the global telecom market — presumably referring to OpenRAN.
"The UK and Japan have strong leadership and expertise in telecommunications and we both recognise the need for a more diverse global telecommunications market," the UK's digital infrastructure minister said. "This partnership opens up important new avenues for our nations to work together towards our shared goal of building safer, more competitive and innovative telecommunications supply chains."
Japan's Deputy Minister for Policy Coordination for International Affairs added: "I am delighted to announce a framework for telecommunications cooperation between Japan and the United Kingdom that will promote supplier diversification, including 5G. Both our countries recognize initiatives to protect the supply chain of telecommunications infrastructure. A secure, competitive and innovative supply chain is essential. Japan and the UK will jointly pursue this through this new framework.”
When it comes to telecommunications infrastructure, the UK and Japan are likely to face different geographic issues - both are densely populated islands, and strategies around deployment may be influenced by some of these factors. It's unclear if that led to the deal, or if it was more of a general type of agreement. If it's the latter, the two countries may have trouble resolving supply chain issues, as none of the major suppliers of large kits are from Japan or the UK, but in the most optimistic scenario, this may be exactly what the deal should be What you do has the opportunity to change.
