Vodafone and Nokia are upbeat about their recent Open RAN trial in Italy, and claim to have achieved speed parity with conventional 5G RAN systems and a significant reduction in latency, compared with earlier pilots. Nevertheless, the fact such claims still need to be made indicates that Open RAN is still a work in progress. Even those telcos most advanced in their Open RAN planning are aware of the need to build critical mass and foster collaborations – both among themselves to overcome challenges, and with vendors to accumulate a sufficient body of components. At present, there is a sense that the case for Open RAN is only established when the equipment comes substantially from a single vendor, which would…