FierceWireless put on a good show for Open RAN, and deserve credit (along with their guest moderators and speakers) for pushing the edges of the Open RAN discussion. Panel moderators didn’t ignore the elephant(s) in the room either… In a week that poured some cold water on the industry’s hottest topic, it was good to see that enthusiasm for Open RAN is undimmed, at least among the faithful. Perhaps the lack of patent lawyers and European commissioners helped. Diane Rinaldo of the Open RAN Policy Coalition called concerns about Open RAN security “overblown”, on the basis that the industry as a whole is far more on top of security issues than it was a decade ago. (She also shared that the coalition is now active in discussion with 30 countries, which is an interesting update in itself). Interoperability, or to be more precise, the job of assuring interoperability was a strong theme. Arguably a sign that the discussion with operators has moved on in the last year into the nuts and bolts of making open RAN happen. Viavi’s Sameh Yamany highlighted the range of scenarios to be tested, but still called Open RAN “here to stay”. Verizon offered strong support […]