There may be disappointment at perceived slow progress in Open RAN, or in the power of traditional vendors in its ecosystem, but momentum is still building behind the would-be open, multivendor, cloud-based architecture and its potential to disrupt the mobile network supply chain. Even Ericsson – which, as the market leader in traditional closed RAN, has the most to lose – is acknowledging the strength of operator demand and at this year’s Mobile World Congress, said unofficially that it would support the next iteration of the O-RAN Alliance’s most foundational spec, Open Fronthaul. But Ericsson has always opposed Open Fronthaul’s choice of 3GPP Split 7.2 – one of many variations in how network functions can be divided between the physical…