The thrills and spills of disaggregation dominated a recent telco event in London, dedicated largely to Open RAN as the presumptive future of mobile networks. We enjoyed the posturing by various parties, including UK regulator Ofcom, whose principal Simon Burley mused enigmatically that network disaggregation will bring whatever operators want to achieve from their networks. Japan’s NTT Docomo seized the opportunity to portray itself as the friend of operators in other countries, with which it was not in direct competition, on the grounds that it has already shown how Open RAN could succeed commercially. Possibly Rakuten would claim the mantle of Open RAN pioneer, having deployed the technology from the outset in a greenfield, but Docomo, along with the country’s…