Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony Advance Open RAN Innovation with Third-Party rApp Integration and Nationwide RIC Deployment

• World-first nationwide deployment of RAN Intelligent Controller third-party applications aligned with O-RAN standards.

• Expanded third-party rApp ecosystem accelerates open, multi-vendor innovation.

• Progress toward autonomous, AI-driven network operations improves performance and reliability for customers.

‍Tokyo, February 26, 2026 – Rakuten Mobile, Inc. and Rakuten Symphony, Inc. today announced major progress in the deployment and evolution of Rakuten’s RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), including expanded third-party rApp integrations and new use cases aligned with O-RAN ALLIANCE standards. Rakuten Mobile has also completed a nationwide deployment of RIC applications across its commercial mobile network in Japan, demonstrates how open, interoperable platforms can move beyond trials and into real-world, large-scale operations.

“Reaching this milestone and deploying third-party rApps across the Rakuten Mobile network means faster optimization cycles and a more resilient, high-quality network experience for our subscribers,” said Sachin Verma, Director, AI and Data Supervisory Department at Rakuten Mobile. “For developers and partners, it creates a proven, real-world platform to deploy rApps at scale with measurable operational impact.”

The RIC is a key component of Open RAN architecture, enabling software applications to intelligently optimize and automate radio network performance. Through collaboration with partners including AirHop Communications and Future Connections, Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony are integrating both third-party and in-house rApps into Non-RT RIC environments. These applications support use cases such as predictive network maintenance, mobility enhancement, traffic optimization and AI-assisted decision making, helping reduce manual intervention while improving network quality and reliability for customers.

“Partnering with Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony has fundamentally changed the deployment timeline for our network automation and optimization Apps,” said Bijan Golkar, VP of Engineering, atAirHop Communications. “The Rakuten Symphony RIC platform provides robust, standards-based APIs that accelerate the trajectory from requirements to network deployment. This efficiency allows AirHop to focus on what we do best: delivering innovative, AI-driven solutions across a broad range of network use cases.”

Alejandro Medina, CTO at Future Connections, said: "Deploying our rApps on Rakuten's nationwide RIC validates that purpose-built and AI-driven solutions can deliver measurable operational impact in real-world Open RAN environments. We look forward to continuing this collaboration to advance autonomous network operations.”

This initiative strengthens Rakuten Mobile’s leadership in Open RAN adoption and contributes to a healthier, multi-vendor ecosystem for telecom innovation. It also greatly contributed to TM Forum’s Autonomous Networks Level 4 validation, where closed-loop automation and artificial intelligence play a central role in network operations.

Vivek Murthy, President of OSS at Rakuten Symphony, added: “By supporting both third-party and Rakuten-developed rApps, our RIC platform demonstrates how open standards can translate into practical innovation. This milestone shows that Open RAN is not just a concept, it is delivering results in live networks today.”

Rakuten Mobile's success in third-party rApp integration and nationwide RIC deployment is also a result of its participation in key research and development projects with the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan, focusing on the development of advanced Open RAN technology for the Beyond 5G era^*1, and edge cloud capabilities for next-generation communications^*2.

Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony continue to engage with additional ecosystem partners and rApp developers to expand the range of use cases and accelerate adoption across the industry. Rakuten welcomes technology partners and developers to engage with its RIC program to onboard and validate rApps and xApps on the only fully developed nationwide RIC on a commercial network in the world today^*3.