As we also analyze in relation to Open RAN (see separate item), the USA’s potential renaissance in the cellular networks industry relies heavily on the innovations of its operators rather than its vendors. Both AT&T and Verizon have been influential in various bids to reset global network standards around open and software-defined platforms, and while their impact on the RAN, outside their own operations, remains to be seen, in edge compute and white box transport networks, their impact on industry-wide trends is already clear. AT&T has vague timetables for virtualizing its RAN, which it has always stated would be the final (and most high-risk) phase of its long journey towards cloud-native and software-defined networks. But it is already using disaggregated…