In Asia, Japan has taken the leading role in Open RAN commercial deployments, thanks to the large-scale efforts of Rakuten Mobile and NTT Docomo, in particular. Meanwhile, Chinese operators are active, but increasingly within their own definitions of Open RAN, and their own vendor ecosystems. The other superpower of Asian cellular technology, South Korea, has been influential in virtualization of the RAN, but less prominent in Open RAN specifically, but incumbent telco KT is setting that right by going public on its Open RAN strategy and boasting a deep cooperation with Docomo. KT says it has been developing its Open RAN strategy for almost three years, since it joined the O-RAN Alliance as a board member in 2018, and is…