Rakuten Mobile and NEC have begun production and first shipments of a jointly-developed 5G radio unit (RU) .
The new domestically produced, high quality 5G RU is equipped with a 3.7 GHz frequency band massive MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) antenna in a compact, lightweight form factor with low power consumption. With the 5G RU, Rakuten Mobile will begin the buildout of its 5G network, starting with the construction of base stations in the Tokyo area*1, and work toward the launch of 5G commercial services in June 2020.
Rakuten Mobile is building the world’s first end-to-end fully virtualized cloud native network, and in October 2019 in Japan successfully implemented the world’s first open, virtualized, distributed radio access network (OpenRAN). In addition, Rakuten Mobile and NEC are also closely collaborating on BSS and OSS solutions for Rakuten Mobile’s 4G network operations.
The manufacturing is carried out at NEC Platforms, Ltd.’s Fukushima Plant.
“NEC’s 5G RU, developed and produced in Japan, will play a very important role in Rakuten Mobile’s fully virtualized cloud native mobile network,” said Tareq Amin, Rakuten Mobile Director, Vice President and CTO. “With the launch of production of the 5G radio unit, we will begin work on the construction of our 5G base stations and will aim to provide our subscribers with a cost efficient, highly secure, high quality 5G service.”
“NEC is very proud to be part of Rakuten Mobile’s advanced 5G network,” said Atsuo Kawamura, Executive Vice President and President of the Network Services Business Unit, NEC Corporation. “The 5G RU, produced at our Fukushima Plant, conforms with open architecture standards, and comes in a compact form factor with low power consumption. By expanding the open 5G ecosystem, NEC will contribute to the creation of new mobile services around the world.”
Rakuten selects NEC to build Open vRAN Architecture
Through the partnership, Rakuten and NEC will jointly develop a 3.7 GHz massive MIMO 5G antenna radio unit (RU), which will be manufactured by NEC at its facilities in Japan. Rakuten and NEC/Netcracker are already working together on an end-to-end BSS/OSS solution to support the mobile network launch and subsequent operations.
Rakuten Mobile is building a fully virtualized, end-to-end cloud-native mobile network.
In April 2019, Rakuten Mobile received approval from the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications for its 5G special radio station deployment plan and aims to launch 5G services in June 2020.
"We are very excited to partner with a network technology leader such as NEC in building the world's first 5G open RAN architecture here in Japan," said Tareq Amin, chief technology officer of Rakuten Mobile, Inc. "NEC's technology and expertise will allow us to not only cost-effectively create a highly secure, high quality 5G network, but by designing and producing the antennas in the local market, we look forward to contributing to the development of the Japanese telecommunications industry and economy."
"NEC is delighted to contribute to Rakuten Mobile's strategy for building the world's first fully virtualized, end-to-end cloud native mobile network," said Atsuo Kawamura, executive vice president and president of the Network Services Business Unit at NEC Corporation. "Going forward, NEC aims to drive the global expansion of virtualized network architecture with Rakuten Mobile."
