In our view, one of the most important factors which will determine whether 5G will be a commercial and socio-economic success is whether it will trigger the blowing apart of the tight circle of the mobile industry to date. This has been much discussed in terms of the supplier ecosystem. The combination of a virtualized, automated platform based on white box hardware, with the efficient and agile 5G radio, should allow mobile operators finally to achieve their long-held dream of introducing a wider variety of vendors into their domains, in a multivendor architecture with significantly reduced upfront and operating costs. But in opening up the platform and the supply chain, MNOs may also expose themselves to new competition. 5G is…