Had Mobile World Congress gone ahead as planned this week, open RAN technologies would certainly have taken a central role. This topic has everything required to generate an MWC buzz – large operators banding together to change the industry; plucky start-ups taking on the giant vendors; the prospect of a major disruption of the industry. Even without the giant meeting in Barcelona, many of the ingredients were present in offline announcements and debates. Huawei and Ericsson duly played their role as Goliaths, resisting the pressure to embrace open architectures. Challengers like Mavenir and Parallel Wireless announced important new partnerships and operator deals. Companies from the data center world such as Intel, Dell and VMware, eager to penetrate the mobile networks…