This year has kicked off with several RAN sharing plans announced by European operators. Having sold off their passive assets to infrastructure companies, operators are looking for more ways to cut costs, and RAN sharing agreements are al la mode. They also provide a handy way to achieve the type of asset mergers that telco execs want, but regulators are pushing back against. The most recent news comes from Norway’s Telia and local operator Ice, which are joining forces to compete with Telenor’s network, the largest in the country. Telia and Norwegian energy and telecom group Lyse (which owns Ice) have agreed a 50/50 joint venture to combine their RANs. They will operate their own separate cores “as independent players…