Vendors like Cisco and Juniper have important positions in the operators’ transport and data center networks but have been firmly excluded from the RAN, with the exception of WiFi, and a few short-lived base station acquisitions by Cisco (Navini, Ubiquisys …). But the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), the most novel element of the Open RAN architecture, gives them – and others, including operators like Rakuten – an entry point to the lucrative RAN market. The RIC provides an open platform for non-real time management and orchestration tasks, but also abstracts near-real time control functions that were typically embedded in the equipment itself, or in a tightly integrated SON (self-optimizing network) product. With the RIC, the idea is that xApps from…