Telekom Austria has become a rather unlikely poster child for the go-ahead mobile operator, taking a front-rank position in many new technologies, including virtualization in many areas of its network. Once a slow-moving incumbent in a second tier market, it is now seen as a pace-setter, and it will be demonstrating some of its trials and innovations at Mobile World Congress. Telekom Austria Group, which covers 23m customers in eight countries in central and eastern Europe, is taking a centralized approach, providing the results of its trials to all its operating companies for potential adoption – a similar pattern to that seen at another major virtualization triallist, Telefonica. One of its announcements is the completion of a trial of virtualized…