Tokyo -- Rakuten Mobile, Inc. and Fujitsu Limited today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), deepening collaboration on joint efforts to develop Open RAN solutions for the global market.

Under the MoU, Rakuten Mobile and Fujitsu will collaborate to jointly develop 4G and 5G Open RAN solutions, promoting the creation of market-leading innovation. Fujitsu will develop new O-RAN based 4G and 5G radio units that Rakuten Mobile will integrate into its Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP) offering, with an eye toward expansion into the global market.

“As we start introducing Rakuten Communications Platform to telco operators, governments and enterprises around the world, we are seeing strong demand for high-performance, cost-effective and high-quality radios for 4G LTE and 5G New Radio (NR) based on open and virtualized RAN,” commented Tareq Amin, Representative Director, Executive Vice President and CTO of Rakuten Mobile. “With Japanese quality and a highly competitive cost structure as major differentiators, our joint efforts with Fujitsu are on track to bring significant incremental value to our customers and partners around the world.”

“We are confident that Fujitsu’s capabilities in advanced wireless technologies and open architecture integration will play an active role in the global expansion of the Rakuten Communications Platform. We look forward to maximizing the synergy between our two companies to further accelerate the global development of Fujitsu's Open RAN solutions,” said Shingo Mizuno, Corporate Executive Officer, Vice Head of System Platform Business (in charge of Network Business).

The MoU will allow the two companies to define joint global go-to-market plans to address the current and future needs of 4G and 5G Open RAN customers around the world, delivering new value with flexible, cost-effective solutions leveraging Rakuten and Fujitsu’s respective strengths and expertise.

RCP is Rakuten’s cloud-native, software-centric, and Open RAN based platform that helps telcos accelerate their migration towards 5G and Open RAN leveraging the power of the cloud, virtualization and openness. Through its collaboration with Fujitsu, Rakuten Mobile will expand the RAN portfolio of RCP with high quality 4G and 5G RUs.

Fujitsu is already contributing to the quality assurance of the Rakuten Communications Platform by providing services for Rakuten Mobile's mobile network in Japan, including evaluation tests for interconnection verification in a multi-vendor environment and hardware quality verification tests. This agreement will further strengthen collaboration on these existing initiatives.