Amid all the rising excitement about open RAN architectures, some large suppliers have taken an ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ approach and are now aiming to turn open systems to their advantage by leading the charge. Samsung and NEC have obvious motivations to leverage open architectures to improve on their very limited presence in access networks outside their home countries. Even Nokia is contributing code to the O-RAN Alliance and setting out a strong strategy to harness openness to lower its RAN costs, increase its market share, and refocus on higher margin software and services. But the big two remain unconvinced. Ericsson has joined O-RAN Alliance but does not appear to be very active, while Huawei’s main contributions…