MORAN accelerating Vision 2030 connectivity transformation

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 has positioned digital infrastructure as a foundational pillar of national transformation. Smart cities, giga-projects, digital government platforms, intelligent transport systems, and next-generation tourism destinations all rely on resilient, high-capacity connectivity delivered at unprecedented scale and speed.

As these initiatives expand across diverse geographies, traditional standalone network deployment models are facing growing limitations. Parallel site construction, duplicated civil works, extended rollout timelines, and rising energy consumption are increasingly misaligned with the pace and sustainability ambitions of national programs.

To address these challenges, operators and regulators are reassessing how mobile infrastructure is deployed — shifting from isolated builds toward collaborative, efficiency-driven models that preserve competition while accelerating coverage.

Rethinking radio deployment models

Conventional RAN deployment assumes that each operator constructs and operates independent infrastructure at every location. While this model supports full autonomy, it becomes inefficient in newly developed zones, remote regions, and large master-planned environments where population density may not initially justify multiple parallel networks.

The result is slower service availability, higher capital expenditure, and unnecessary duplication of physical infrastructure.

As nationwide 5G coverage requirements expand, infrastructure efficiency is no longer optional — it has become strategic.

MORAN as a practical sharing model

Multi-Operator Radio Access Network (MORAN) offers a balanced approach to network sharing that aligns deployment efficiency with regulatory simplicity.

Under MORAN, mobile operators share radio access infrastructure — including towers, site facilities, power systems, baseband units, radio units, and antennas — while retaining full independence at the spectrum and core-network layers.

Each operator continues to manage its own licensed spectrum, public land mobile network identity, core network, transmission backhaul, OSS/BSS platforms, and service policies.

This separation preserves competitive neutrality and service differentiation while enabling significant cost and deployment efficiencies at the infrastructure layer.

Accelerating nationwide 5G rollout

One of MORAN’s strongest advantages is speed.

By eliminating parallel site construction, MORAN enables faster coverage delivery across giga-projects and new developments, transport corridors and logistics hubs, rural and low-density regions, and early-stage smart city zones.

Shared infrastructure allows operators to deploy once, activate faster, and scale coverage in line with demand — significantly shortening time-to-market for critical services.

For Vision 2030 programs operating under fixed national milestones, deployment velocity becomes as important as network performance.

Enabling giga-project connectivity at scale

Saudi Arabia’s giga-projects represent some of the most complex digital ecosystems globally. These developments integrate residential communities, hospitality, mobility, utilities, IoT platforms, public safety systems, and immersive digital experiences within unified master-planned environments.

MORAN supports these environments by enabling coordinated infrastructure design from early planning stages. Shared RAN deployment minimizes construction disruption, reduces visual impact, and ensures consistent indoor-to-outdoor coverage across large geographic areas.

Importantly, MORAN also simplifies long-term evolution. Network upgrades — including advanced 5G features, network slicing, and future 6G readiness — can be implemented once at the infrastructure layer, benefiting all participating operators.

Sustainability and ESG impact

Vision 2030 places strong emphasis on environmental responsibility and sustainable development.

MORAN directly supports these objectives by reducing the number of physical sites required nationwide. Fewer towers, shelters, and power systems translate into lower energy consumption, reduced carbon emissions, and improved integration of renewable-energy solutions.

Beyond environmental impact, shared infrastructure also reduces land usage and visual footprint — a critical consideration in heritage zones, tourism destinations, and environmentally sensitive areas.

Alignment with open digital architectures

MORAN aligns naturally with modern digital-transformation frameworks that emphasize modular, cloud-native and interoperable network architectures.

These frameworks support independent evolution of physical infrastructure and digital service layers, enabling operators to integrate cloud cores, automation platforms, and advanced orchestration capabilities without dependency on shared radio components.

Automation and orchestration remain operator-specific, enabling differentiated network slicing, policy control, and service lifecycle management. Reduced physical complexity also enhances operational agility, fault isolation, and performance optimization.

As networks evolve toward AI-driven operations and autonomous capabilities, MORAN provides a simplified physical foundation on which advanced digital intelligence can operate.

Economic efficiency and investment optimization

Infrastructure sharing through MORAN delivers tangible economic benefits.

Reduced duplication of civil works, power systems, and site maintenance lowers both capital and operational expenditure. This improves overall investment efficiency and allows operators to redirect resources toward innovation, cybersecurity, automation, and customer experience.

At national scale, these efficiencies strengthen investment confidence for public-private partnerships and support long-term telecom sustainability.

What this means for operators and regulators

MORAN provides a pragmatic middle ground between full infrastructure independence and deeper spectrum-sharing models.

For operators, it enables faster deployment, lower costs, and scalable expansion while preserving commercial differentiation.

For regulators, MORAN maintains clear spectrum ownership boundaries and simplifies compliance, making it well suited to environments that encourage infrastructure efficiency without compromising market competition.

As national connectivity demands continue to grow, MORAN offers a model that aligns technical feasibility, regulatory clarity, and economic sustainability.

The path forward

Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation agenda continues to advance at unmatched scale and ambition. Delivering on Vision 2030 requires connectivity models that are fast, efficient, sustainable, and future-ready.

MORAN represents a mature and regulation-friendly network-sharing approach capable of supporting these objectives. By combining accelerated rollout, optimized investment, ESG alignment, and architectural flexibility, MORAN provides a strong foundation for nationwide 5G expansion and long-term digital resilience.

As the Kingdom moves toward an increasingly connected economy, collaborative infrastructure models will play a defining role in enabling inclusive growth, innovation ecosystems, and next-generation digital services.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of TM Forum or its affiliates.