The UK’s BT, unlike rival Vodafone, has been skeptical of many of the claims made for Open RAN, questioning its ability to support a full-performance 5G network, while insisting it wants “fewer suppliers to manage, not more”. However, chief architect Neil McRae – for all his wariness about the near term feasibility of Open RAN outside of small cell networks – has been vocally interested in the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), a key element of the O-RAN Alliance architecture. BT has been testing various RIC applications in its R&D labs in AdAstral Park, and has suggested it would develop its own xApps to run on an open RIC platform. Now it is bringing its activities out of the labs and…