Hard on the heels of Nokia, which unveiled its big pitch for the emerging O-RAN market, Samsung has also announced plans to make fully virtualized RAN (vRAN) with support for the open RAN interfaces and architecture, commercially available by October. The Korean vendor is aiming to achieve a global market for its network infrastructure for the first time. In the 4G era, its deployments were largely confined to Korea and to WiMAX technology. In 5G, it has scored early wins in the USA, Canada and elsewhere, especially where it can leverage its advances in fixed wireless access (FWA) and in millimeter wave spectrum. But it has lost its flagship European 4G customer, 3 UK, and is still seeking broad adoption.…