News & Announcements

The definitive report on Open RAN: Annual Industry Survey 2022

By
Ayaka Takeuchi
Marketing Specialist
Rakuten Symphony
February 16, 2023
3
minute read

In recent years, Open RAN has undoubtedly become one of the hottest topics in telco. And at the forefront of this conversation is Rakuten Symphony. Together with Rakuten Mobile, we have deployed the world’s first and largest end-to-end cloud-native network, providing coverage to over 300,000 cells managed by a team of just 250 professionals. According to a 2022 study from Umlaut, the network is one of the highest performing among 14 metropolitan areas globally. So is now the time for the industry to take an open interface cloud-native approach to telecoms?

Rakuten Symphony recently participated in Telecom.com’s Annual Industry Survey to understand perspectives on Open RAN. The report at large provides detailed high-level insights from operators, vendors and system integrators from Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. The full report covers seven specific areas affecting telecoms today: 5G, Digital Transformation, BSS Monetization, Broadband Service Management, Video, IoT and Open RAN.

Below is a brief overview of the Open RAN survey results (pg. 32) as well as our perspective. To access the full report, visit here.

Highlights from the survey

  • 62% of respondents showed commitment to Open RAN by having already launched commercial deployment or indicating plans to do so in the forthcoming year (2023).
  • Three major decision factors for embracing Open RAN include lower cost, increased opportunity for automation and improved time to market.
  • The biggest ‘inhibitor’ of Open RAN is the perception of an immature ecosystem.

Compared to the longstanding operational norms of telecom, Open RAN is still a new reality, and we understand unfamiliar approaches, architectures and operations can cause hesitation for some operators. However, we also understand that changes are unavoidable when any industry and technology undergoes necessary modernization. And telecom is well overdue for a change.

Like the respondents, we also see Open RAN as a vehicle for cost reduction, increased automation and efficiency. Through the journey of building a next-gen network, Rakuten Symphony has witnessed and proved this approach's full potential and we look forward to sharing these learnings with the industry.

To view the full report, please visit the Telecoms.com site.

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