It is always the case that, as long as exciting new technologies remain pre-commercial, their pioneers enjoy a day in the sun. It is when operators or vendors come close to commercial realities that investors and market watchers become more nervous and skeptical. So it has been this year for Rakuten Mobile in Japan and Dish Network in the USA – the two largest greenfield poster children for Open RAN, and both pioneering in their choices of architectures, suppliers and cost models. However, both increasingly have to justify their networks to naysayers, less on technical grounds but in terms of the impact of open networks on real world costs and commercial KPIs. Dish has not gone live with its planned…