Rakuten Symphony has been expanding its partnership program with system integrators, technology providers and regional sales partners throughout the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. Already these partners have helped a number of MNOs to improve their digital infrastructure—with much more to come.
The fruits of this partnership program were the topic of a panel discussion at MWC Barcelona 2026. Moderated by James Dartnell, Rakuten Symphony Director of Corporate Communications, panel members discussed technology, partnerships and network upgrades. The panelists included:
Kosi started the conversation discussing the impact of Telkom Kenya’s partnership with Rakuten Symphony on Open RAN. Telkom Kenya is the number three MNO in the country and competes against two larger operators that are divisions of larger groups and have access to more resources. Given this competitive landscape, Kosi said the move to Open RAN helped level the playing field.
Said Kosi: “The only way to be able to compete with existing giant operators in a competitive landscape is to really have a technological advancement. We felt that Open RAN gives us that technological advancement.”
Kosi said Open RAN gives Telkom Kenya an advantage in three technological areas.
The first is much faster speed of deployment. The second is cost-effective management of the infrastructure which leads to reductions in operating expenses and power costs. And the third is the ability to better use AI to control the network and to launch new services.
Ozeren of Radore commented on the evolution of data center services in the region, saying that he is seeing a shift from customers asking only for power and space to deploy their compute capacity, to increasingly asking for connectivity and fast compute deployment.
Edge cloud computing is also an area of growth, he said, because it allows these companies to be closer to their customers, and just as important, it’s fast to deploy. Said Ozeron: “Fast deployment is more important than the space and the power.”
How can companies move to Open RAN or other new services without a huge disruption? Alagöz of Odine emphasized the need to transition into a new technology in phases as the solution is deployed end-to-end across the network. Some keys to success he said are to pick the best technology, develop a phased deployment plan, and find an in-house owner of the project who will be there throughout the entire build out to provide stability.
Alagöz said: “The right solution has to both fit your customers’ needs and also be future proof to provide a growth path for the customer.”
Network generations technologies like AI, 5G and 6G are important, but more is needed to leverage these technologies to maximize revenues and improve efficiency. Sayed likened 5G/6G networks to a Formula One car: “You can have the fastest car in the world, but it’s about how you will be able to leverage this car.”
Sayed said there are four things that MEA customers need to have in place to make the most of AI, 5G and 6G networks. The first of these is open technologies. Rakuten Symphony adds value to this with its cloud-native software and virtualized solutions like OSS and Open RAN.
Number two are trusted local partners, like Radore and Odine. As Rakuten Symphony partners, these companies have access to the complete Rakuten Symphony software and the ecosystem needed to build end-to-end solutions.
Edge cloud data centers are third thing customers need as this helps to deploy Open RAN and other services on the Edge.
The fourth requirement is automation and security that provides the ability to operate the networks and AI Infrastructure and keep them safe.
There is much more wisdom and insight from this panel of experts than we were able to capture in this blog post. To hear it all watch the entire panel discussion on our YouTube channel.
