In the market for Open RAN network functions (xNFs), there are several prominent challenger vendors, as well as developments by majors such as Nokia. Altiostar stole a significant march over competitors when it won the contract for RAN software from Rakuten Mobile, which has the largest Open RAN to date, and was subsequently acquired by the Japanese operator. That has given the smaller firm a central role in the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP), which will be marketed as a pre-integrated set of elements to operators round the world. However, even this endorsement does not mean plain sailing for Altiostar, which has been replaced in Telecom Italia’s fledgling Open RAN deployment by fellow US provider JMA Wireless. One reason is that…