Rakuten Mobile Delivers Its Virtualized Reality

Rakuten Mobile’s fully virtualized greenfield network running on cloud native and open radio access network (RAN) technology is live. The commercial launch, which was achieved two years after the Japanese government allocated spectrum to the ecommerce juggernaut, marks the world’s first network-wide deployment of its kind. It’s a network architecture that costs 40% less than traditional telecommunication infrastructure and the savings on opex are even better, according to CTO Tareq Amin. The operator is passing some of those savings on to customers in the form of a $28 monthly subscription for unlimited data, voice, and messaging services.