Operators are getting impatient about virtualization. At the start of this year, ETSI’s NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) platform seemed to have become established as a near-standard in record time, sparking trials of virtualized network elements from packet core to IMS to RAN. But then disputes set in around the crucial area of MANO (management and orchestration) and fragmentation threatened. Operators are becoming publicly restive, looking for approaches which will enable them to achieve their goals of accelerated, agile service delivery and resource efficiency – rather than landing them in years of standards wars. The ability to deliver new services quickly is the top driver for network virtualization, according to new Heavy Reading research, while cutting capex and opex costs comes…