News that AT&T and Nokia are working together on a key element of the emerging Open RAN (ORAN) platform is a sign that momentum is growing behind the move to break down the proprietary network architectures of the past – to the extent that one of the vendors which made its fortune from closed networks now feels compelled to support the open approach. The two companies are jointly developing a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) for automatic optimization of the network. This will be open sourced within the broader ORAN platform and help to drive an interoperable ecosystem and a fully programmable mobile network. The deal follows only weeks after Nokia announced a similar collaboration with China Mobile. The telecoms network…