The O-RAN platform, and its attempt to drive a multivendor ecosystem for virtualized networks, gained a significant credibility boost last week when four major Europe-based operator groups offered very public support in the shape of a memorandum of understanding (MoU). Signing up were Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone, which between them have 1.4bn customers (see lead article for analysis). The four operators said in their joint statement: “The signatories individually commit that Open RAN will be the technology of choice for RAN… The signatories will collaborate to support Open RAN reaching competitive parity with traditional RAN solutions as soon as possible,” they said, agreeing to “prioritize” the implementation of Open RAN (without really defining that). They said: “This initiative is…