TelecomTV tapped a geyser with its Open RAN Summit…but was there more than just hot air? There are two kinds of people in telecom. Those who already know Open RAN is truly revolutionary, and those who don’t – yet. TelecomTV’s first Open RAN summit corralled perspectives from some of key flag-wavers in the vanguard of the revolution. Speakers included senior people with something worth hearing: most notably AT&T’s Andrew Fuetsch, Vodafone’s Yago Tenorio, Deutsche Telekom’s Alex Choi but also from VMWare, RedHat, Commscope, Worldwide Technology, HPE, Nokia, Orange, Altiostar, NTT DoCoMo, Verizon, BT, Reliance Jio, Robin.io and ONF. An impressive roster, to be commended. And while seasoned pros Ray LeMaistre and Guy Daniels might have made it feel like an after-show cocktail hour, don’t be fooled: Open RAN is much, much more important than that. That’s not to say that Open RAN’s success is guaranteed (or even all that clearly defined!), but the distinct forces, pressures, activities in and around Open RAN make it potentially the most impactful development in telecom for – literally – decades. Just for clarity, in what follows I’ll refer to “Open RAN” as the umbrella term for the movement (and it is a movement). You’ll […]