Special Report: Evolution of the 5G core Scarcely a week goes by without new headlines about Open RAN. It took center stage at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Last week, the five European operators that are collectively trying to drive regional Open RAN adoption and ecosystem signed their second memorandum of understanding, with a focus on energy efficiency and the next stage of specifications. NTT Docomo and Rakuten’s integration arm, Symphony, are playing ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ with their growing Open RAN ecosystems. But the most open and agile of RANs will not deliver all the targeted benefits of 5G if they are not combined with equally agile core networks, both in terms of the packet core…