As noted in the previous article, there are considerable hurdles to jump for operators which want to deploy radical new architectures – including 5G NR Standalone or a cloud-native core and RAN – in order to exploit the full potential of 5G. But some operators are making bold moves towards the new architectures, either because they are relatively greenfield players like Rakuten, Dish and Reliance Jio, or they feel are operating in markets, like the USA, where significant competitive pressure is partly related to the quality and advanced state of the network. AT&T and Verizon are very advanced deployers of virtualized, software-defined networks and white box hardware, and now T-Mobile USA is hurtling towards 5G Standalone (SA). TMO said it…