Funded by the Japanese government, Rakuten’s new lab should be open in March 2023
Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony UK announced Monday plans to open what they’re calling an Open RAN Customer Experience Center in the U.K. It’s coming to Rakuten Symphony’s offices by March 2023, and will enable telecom operators in Europe and the Middle East to come and test out new Open RAN technology in the field, the companies said.
“In order to further develop and promote Open RAN technologies to support safe, open and transparent 5G networks, Rakuten Symphony plans to utilize the facility with partners to validate equipment interoperability, establish exhibition facilities to demonstrate the latest technologies and conduct workshops,” said Rakuten.
Rakuten said the new offices will focus on three primary goals, starting with validating the interoperability of Open RAN devices. The facility will validate equipment interoperability in a multivendor environment by performing connection confirmation verification, it said. The second goal is to create an exhibition facility to demonstrate Open RAN hardware and software in action, giving visitors and opportunity to see how “next-generation mobile networks will be used to improve operational efficiency and new services,” Rakuten said.
The third goal, said Rakuten, is to conduct Open RAN-related workshops and events to introduce “policies, trends and initiatives to European and overseas network operators and telecommunications equipment suppliers,” it said.
Rakuten has been operating a Mobile Open Innovation Lab in Tokyo, Japan since August. The company describes the facility as “a technology verification environment that utilizes the technologies and experience acquired by Rakuten Mobile through its Open RAN commercial mobile network.”
Rakuten pointed to ongoing efforts between the governments of the U.K. and Japan to facilitate telecom equipment supplier diversity. The two countries made a joint announcement in March to establish a joint framework and working groups to explore collaboration between the U.K.’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Science (DCMS) and Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC).
“Rakuten Mobile’s proposal to establish a new Open RAN Customer Experience Center and evaluate interoperable technologies was selected for funding by MIC, because of its potential to contribute to this global strategic partnership between the UK and Japan,” said Rakuten.
Rakuten maintains an aggressive posture when it comes to deploying Open RAN technology on its Japanese network. In September, Rakuten Symphony announced the general availability of its Symware Open RAN distributed edge product, along with its plans to deploy 30,000 units across Rakuten Mobile’s network in Japan. It added Juniper’s RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) to Symphony earlier this month, offering it for free to Rakuten Symphony customers who buy Symworld applications.
Rakuten also announced plans to migrate away from Red Hat as the provider of its Linux-based operating system, in favor of Rocky Linux, which employs a licensing framework more conducive to Rakuten’s business, according to Rakuten Symphony CEO Tareq Amin.
“It killed my business model. Imagine the number of Open RAN appliances. If every appliance is going to have an inflated subscription fee, then I’ve lost the game to legacy vendors,” said Amin.
The U.K. isn’t the only place that Rakuten is expanding Open RAN evangelization efforts. Telecom modernization efforts are underway in India, where vendors only recently lit up 5G services. It’s there that Rakuten Symphony is working on a new lab. Rakuten plans to carry out global research and development in the field of industrialized automation of Open RAN-based, cloud native mobile networks at the new facility in Bengalaru, India. Rakuten Symphony noted that the new facility is expected to open in early 2023 and will be housed inside new engineering development facilities opening simultaneously, to bring together Rakuten Symphony’s Bengaluru employee base.
