Rakuten Symphony’s Real Open RAN Licensing Program is set to provide new and unprecedented opportunities for development in the RAN ecosystem, a panel of industry leaders has said.
Hosted at the Rakuten booth during MWC Barcelona 2025, Sharad Sriwastawa, President of Rakuten Symphony, led a discussion with representatives from its first Program partners moderated by AvidThink Principal Analyst, Roy Chua. Prior to the Barcelona telco showcase, Rakuten Symphony announced the signing of Memorandums of Understanding with Cisco Systems, Airspan Networks and Tech Mahindra to take Rakuten Symphony’s Open RAN portfolio to the global telecom market.
Rakuten Symphony’s Real Open RAN Licensing Program is a ground-breaking initiative designed to democratize RAN technology worldwide via the provision of its software through an open community subscription model. The model is a first by telecom industry norms, and is expected to lower the barrier of entry and shorten the time-to-market for telecom ecosystem players to accelerate and simplify access to the most critical software stack workloads required in the open Radio Access Network, setting a new standard for innovation and performance in telecom.
"Rakuten Symphony isn’t just competing with RAN vendors – we're enabling them."
Sharad shared his strategic vision of collaboration, ecosystem development, and ways the Program could reduce traditional roadblocks in Open RAN technology development.
“Rakuten Symphony isn’t just competing with RAN vendors – we're enabling them,” he said. “Our goal is to create an ecosystem where we can license our proven software, allowing RU vendors, cloud vendors, and global systems integrators to leverage our technology. We want to unlock the market and provide a scalable, tested platform that reduces barriers to entry for innovative telecommunications solutions.”
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As part of the partnership, Rakuten Symphony and Cisco intend to create a unified Private 5G mobile network offering with a combination of Cisco’s Mobility Services Platform-based Private 5G Solution with 5G Advanced capabilities and Rakuten Symphony’s Open RAN software solutions, designed to assist global service providers in transforming their network architecture as they look to build AI-ready infrastructure to support the demands of their customers.
Masum Mir, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Provider Mobility, Cisco, highlighted the Program’s potential to accelerate the pace of innovation not just within telecom, but also within the enterprise.
“Enterprise customers have always wanted simplicity, flexibility, and an open ecosystem,” he said. “With Open RAN, we're transforming cellular networks from rigid, long-build infrastructure to agile, iterative platforms. Enterprises need to build, test, and adapt quickly - not wait years for deployment. This Program gives us the technological agility to create network solutions that can rapidly evolve with specific enterprise use cases, from hyper-connected factories to autonomous driving environments."
Airspan and Tech Mahindra, meanwhile, will resell Rakuten Symphony Open RAN software licences to telecom operators and enterprises globally, comprising codebases across the Central Unit (CU), Distributed Unit (DU) and Operations and Management (OAM) software. Tech Mahindra will serve as preferred systems integrator for Rakuten Symphony.
Tech Mahindra CEO and Managing Director Mohit Joshi praised the initiative on the panel, and highlighted his belief in the benefits of open systems.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for Tech Mahindra and its clients,” he said. “We can definitely see the advantages of the approach of an open architecture, the simplicity it offers, the modular nature, the scalability, the cost and commercial benefits. We do see the applicability of taking this more broadly across the globe. Open systems offer advantages compared to proprietary systems – they’re easier for clients, more commercially viable, contractually simpler. There is scalability, there is flexibility. You have the ability to build solutions on top of the underlying architecture.”
Airspan President and CEO Glenn Laxdal underscored the program's significance, stating that "the next five years will be about Open RAN taking off in the marketplace" - highlighting Rakuten Symphony’s software's “battle-tested” credentials.
"The Open RAN ecosystem is at a critical inflection point,” he said. “What the last five years have been about is platform building, and what the next five years will be about is Open RAN truly taking off in the marketplace. Our partnership with Rakuten Symphony provides a microservice-based, cloud-native platform that's been battle-hardened through hundreds of millions of dollars of development and real-world deployment with 8.5 million subscribers. This isn't just theoretical - it's a proven solution that can scale from mobile network operators to private network opportunities, providing the critical building blocks for a more flexible, innovative telecommunications infrastructure."
Sharad concluded the panel by highlighting how Rakuten Symphony hopes to add “three or four” new partners to the Program by the end of 2025, widening the reach of an initiative that aims to accelerate innovation in the RAN ecosystem.
