Open RAN promised to be the shoehorn that smaller vendors could use to pry their way into the RAN equipment market. Samsung, NEC, and Fujitsu all spring to mind. But as the ambitions of Open RAN failed to materialize in the last two years, some vendors pinned their hopes on other movements, such as AI RAN, or in the case of NEC, have given up on the venture altogether. The Japanese vendor may have been waiting until the end of the year to announce its departure from 4G and 5G base station development, hoping that the timing would elicit as little media attention as possible. On December 28th, NEC President Takayuki Morita told Japanese news site Nikkei that it will…