It’s clear that the movement toward disaggregated cloud-native architectures will only see more traction in the industry.
A success factor in the growth of Open RAN is creating a diverse vendor ecosystem that will provide operators with choices. This will allow them to move away from the current, cumbersome black box approach that leaves many MNOs with a single supplier for their entire network, driving up the cost, sometimes considerably, for the network.
Thankfully, the movement from proprietary hardware to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) architecture has opened new levels of innovation and diversity for today’s telecom environment.
At MWC Barcelona 2023, the overall theme for Rakuten Symphony will be Mobile as a Software. This theme not only applies to the innovative software we will be demonstrating at our booth but also to how the infrastructure optimized for a cloud-native architecture can be better managed through automation and result in faster network build-outs and improved management of the overall network.
During the show, we will highlight our Platform Infrastructure Experience Zone at the Rakuten booth (#2D46), where several partners will display their products and talk about how they are working with Rakuten Symphony to open a new supply chain for the industry. Attendees will get a chance to speak with representatives from Rakuten’s roster of partners who helped build the world’s first cloud-native mobile network at scale in Japan.
The O-RAN Alliance built the foundation for introducing new radio vendors by standardizing the specifications for the front haul interface between the radio and the baseband in the cellular network. Partners in our booth, including Airspan, Baytec, BMI, Sercomm and Qucell, have been actively working on designing O-RAN-based radio solutions that are both high-performance and versatile, spanning technologies such as massive MIMO, small cell and CPE radios. We welcome you to see these products up close at our booth.
Beyond the radios, companies like Intel and Supermicro have evolved their architectures to meet the real-time requirements for cloud-based networks. This evolution has included developing hardware blueprints for Open RAN architectures that can be easily scaled for any environment, whether existing or new mobile network. It has resulted in new hardware designs, changing how networks are deployed at the cell site and data center. In addition, the silicon on which this COTS hardware is based has continued to advance with new innovations that will decrease costs and increase power efficiency for the operator.
Please visit the Rakuten Symphony MWC Barcelona landing page for more details on our different Experience Zones and to set up a meeting or demo with us during the show.
We look forward to seeing you in Barcelona!
