In Japan, the second MNO, KDDI, has had a far lower profile than leader NTT Docomo, or newcomer Rakuten Mobile, when it comes to open, cloud-based RANs. But KDDI has started trials of 5G virtualized RAN, with at least some elements of Open RAN, in its midband spectrum, with a view to commercial deployment next year. The operator is working with Samsung, which has been expanding its South Korean RAN base into the USA and Japan, among other countries, by leveraging its advances in vRAN and in Massive MIMO. KDDI has been a landmark customer for Samsung. Along with AT&T and Verizon in the USA, the operator provided early 5G contracts for the Korean vendor, greatly boosting its credibility as…