Rakuten Mobile wins 2021 GLOMO Awards
Rakuten Mobile shined at GSMA’s 2021 Global Mobile (GLOMO) Awards at MWC Barcelona. In the award category Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough, Rakuten Mobile won for its submission for 5G Open RAN on Kubernetes. After topping this category, Rakuten Mobile was recognized with the CTO Choice: Outstanding Mobile Technology Award, the highest recognition from the global telco industry at the 2021 GLOMO Awards. A panel of industry experts (comprised of more than 20 CTOs, from every continent) selected Rakuten Mobile as the overall technology winner from the eight best ‘Mobile Tech’ in 2020 award winners.
“We have achieved something not performed until now in the telco industry.”
Tareq Amin, CTO Rakuten Mobile
“We have achieved something not performed until now in the telco industry,” commented Rakuten Mobile CTO Tareq Amin. “I am incredibly proud of the team at Rakuten Mobile and our many partners for achieving a disaggregated Open RAN deployment on a container-based solution. And I am humbled that CTOs from around the world have recognized Rakuten Mobile for this technology breakthrough.”
Rakuten Mobile’s unique solution
Built together with its ecosystem partners, Rakuten Mobile’s solution is to run 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) functions as microservices in containers. Containers are a lighter-weight, more agile way of handling virtualization — enabling the user to realize faster resource provisioning and speedier availability of new applications.
Another unique aspect of Rakuten Mobile’s award-winning solution is that the 5G RAN functions run as microservices on a commodity off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware platform based on Open RAN specifications and cloud native technologies. This results in greater flexibility and elasticity in architecting; the ability to quickly scale and more easily deploy 5G networks; and the support of diverse 5G use cases with a lower total cost of ownership.
Containers = savings
Rakuten Mobile’s container-based solution is seeing results. This approach will deliver up to 40% reduction in capital expenditure (CAPEX) and up to 30% reduction in operating expenses (OPEX) compared to traditional 5G deployment. These savings are achieved by running 5G RAN functions as microservices in containers using cloud native technologies running on COTS hardware, reducing the cost of building, operating and maintaining 5G networks. It also enables the end-to-end management, orchestration and life-cycle management of 5G RAN, 5G Core and transport and cloud infrastructure and is driving new industry-wide innovations in the area of 5G RAN.
John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA Ltd offered praise for Rakuten Mobile and all award winners: “Congratulations to all the winners and nominees of the GSMA’s GLOMO Awards 2021. You truly embody the theme of this year’s event, Connected Impact. Given the challenging circumstances we’ve all faced over the 15 months, it’s more important than ever to come together to recognize the incredible innovation and ingenuity shaping our industry, as well as the positive impact this is making on the world around us.”
The GLOMO judges commented on Rakuten Mobile, “This company, with ecosystem partners has successfully deployed a fully open, cloud-native and cost-effective mobile network, a great benchmark for the operators globally to adopt and join the open network bandwagon.”
The annual GLOMO Awards are widely recognized as the most prestigious recognition scheme in the global mobile industry and judged by independent experts, analysts, journalists, academics, and, mobile operator representatives. The Awards celebrate the companies and individuals driving innovation in the rapidly evolving mobile industry.
Click here to read more on how Rakuten Mobile is pioneering Open RAN innovation and revolutionizing the global telco industry.
