Last year, there were hopes that the two major groups aiming to set the standard for management and orchestration (MANO) of virtualized networks would converge. However, this looks less likely as the company with the greatest power to drive a rapprochement, Telefónica, has gone very quiet on the subject, and is pushing ahead with testing solutions based on its preferred would-be standard, ETSI’s Open Source MANO (OSM). In the middle of 2018, the Spanish telco was dropping hints that it might also join the AT&T-initiated ONAP, hosted by the Linux Foundation, which would have been a big step towards the two groups defining ways to interoperate. Uncertainty over which route to take in the critical area of MANO, and fears…