Rakuten Mobile expands Rakuten Symphony’s Symware product family with Open RAN-based 5G Massive MIMO solutions from Qualcomm Technologies

We’ve heard it before: “Open RAN won’t work with Massive MIMO.”

Massive MIMO is a type of smart antenna technology with multiple-input multiple-output. The benefits are no less massive, with greater processing power on a smaller footprint that requires less energy. It’s considered by many in the industry as a gamechanger for legacy mobile infrastructure deployments and the Achilles heel for Open RAN deployments — those mobile networks built on open and interoperable standards.

These perceptions are about to change.

"Rakuten Symphony is passionately committed to enabling the transformation of mobile networks for the digital-centric future,” said Tareq Amin, chief executive officer, Rakuten Symphony, Inc., commenting on an agreement to develop new solutions between Qualcomm Technologies and Rakuten Mobile, Inc. (Rakuten Symphony’s parent company) that aims to offer mobile operators and other organizations a dynamic and cost-effective way to deploy high-performance, virtualized 5G networks through the adoption of O-RAN-compliant software and infrastructure.

In a newly signed agreement to develop bespoke solutions designed to overcome the considerable challenges of Massive MIMO for Open RAN, Rakuten Mobile, the parent company of Rakuten Symphony, collaborated with Qualcomm Technologies on a new 5G RU (radio unit) with Massive MIMO capabilities and DU (distributed units). These solutions, powered by Qualcomm 5G RAN Platforms, benefit mobile network operators by simplifying network deployments, lowering total cost of ownership and by accelerating adoption of cloud-native, Open RAN-based mobile networks globally.

Commenting on the agreement, Durga Malladi, senior vice president and general manager, 5G, Mobile Broadband and Infrastructure, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. said, “Through this collaboration, our collective aim is to accelerate next generation 5G mobile infrastructure global adoption, and this milestone will help operators meet performance demands at the edge and provide enhanced user experiences.”

Using the Qualcomm X100 5G RAN Accelerator Card and high-performance Massive MIMO Qualcomm QRU100 5G RAN Platform, the new products are designed to enhance Rakuten Symphony’s Symware product portfolio of Open RAN solutions that enable the deployment of innovative, virtualized, and open 5G networks at scale and help operators to meet performance demands at the edge.

This agreement is the latest in a longstanding relationship between the companies, which have collaborated on technologies and expertise during the build of Rakuten Mobile’s network in Japan.

Junko Sunaga, vice president, Qualcomm Japan GK and president, Qualcomm Japan added, “Joining forces with Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony is at the heart of advancing the cellular ecosystem and accelerating the innovation cycle to enable the fast track of deploying modern networks at scale. We look forward to continuing this collaboration.”

Qualcomm 5G RAN Platform, Qualcomm X100 5G RAN Accelerator Card, Qualcomm QRU100 5G RAN Platform are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.