We’ve had the European ‘Gang of Five’ – five large telcos that signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) earlier this year, to support Open RAN deployments and ecosystem (those telcos were Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, TIM and Vodafone). Now five Middle Eastern operators have followed suit with their own Open RAN MoU. The signatories are Etisalat, stc, Zain, Mobily and du, which mainly operate in the Gulf states. They have committed to support and deploy Open RAN in their future roll-outs, though they were cautious in their words about supply chain diversification. For some Open RAN supporters, especially those from governments that see an opportunity to build a local industry, a diverse supply chain is the main attraction. But for…