Nokia had a difficult end to 2019. Some of its challenges were the result of familiar pressures – price competition and delays in operator decisions about 5G. Some related to the unambitious nature of early 5G roll-outs. Nokia is the best positioned of the big three, in our opinion, for supporting a fully software-based, cloud-native core and RAN in future. But operators are hesitating to deploy such radical architectures, and instead rolling out 5G in the conventional way, usually with existing 5G suppliers – which suits Ericsson and Huawei, with their greater scale and installed base in the RAN. By the time operators catch up with Nokia’s software networks, its rivals may have caught up, and smaller challengers from the…