Space & AI: Rakuten Mobile’s next frontiers

What happens when satellites, AI, and mobile phones converge? At the recent Rakuten AI Optimism conference, three industry leaders came together to discuss how space tech and AI can reshape telecommunications in Japan and beyond.

The panel featured Rakuten Mobile co-CEOs Sharad Sriwastawa and Kazuhiro Suzuki, along with Rakuten Mobile President, Shunsuke Yazawa, taking on the theme Space & AI in Telecom’s Next Frontier: Rakuten Mobile’s Path to No. 1 Mobile Carrier. The big takeaway: Rakuten Mobile is differentiating itself from competitors with a software-driven mindset, an embrace of AI for sustainable connectivity, and mobile network coverage directly from space.

From roaming patchwork to Open RAN across Japan

“We started with phase one, only covering metropolitan areas, and the rest was covered with our roaming partner. But now we have almost full nationwide coverage,” Sriwastawa said. “We are the biggest Open RAN network operator in the world, with more than 340,000 cell sites.”

As the global telecom pioneer of building, deploying, and operating an Open RAN (radio access network) platform, Rakuten Mobile is able to deliver both cost savings in network operations and consumer benefits. 

“We saved 40% on capex and we are saving 30% on opex. This allows us to give a discount to our customers,” Sriwastawa told the conference. “Absolutely no throttling; it’s a real unlimited plan.”

The results of Rakuten Mobile’s gambit are clear: subscribers consume an average of more than 30GB each month – three times that of rival carriers. Independent firm OpenSignal has also named Rakuten Mobile as the global leader in key network operator metrics, including 5G upload speeds, voice app and games experience.

“When we started, nobody imagined the era of 100GB a month,” Yazawa observed. “Today our customers already use over 30GB on average. Usage is growing at an astonishing pace.”

Perks of a digital-driven approach

Rakuten Mobile’s cloud-native and software-centric approach allow engineers to tap into the power of AI for maximum efficiency, Sriwastawa explained. “AI enables more intelligent operations.”

In a traditional network, hardware trouble at a site would necessitate a trip from a technician for repair. Rakuten Mobile’s design allows the system to automatically shift workloads between servers in case of hardware failure. “Auto-detection, auto-ticket creation and probably in most cases, auto-resolution, auto-healing.”

“From now, AI will become your concierge. It will predict what you want and offer it to you before you ask.”

Kazuhiro Suzuki, co-CEO, Rakuten Mobile

Sriwastawa revealed that they are already using historical data to help predict failures before they happen. Rakuten Mobile’s autonomous network operations, he noted, is at “level 3.5” and well on the way to becoming a fully autonomous network in the near future, while most global peers remain at level “2.5 or 3.”

AI is also making its way to the consumer side, as Rakuten embeds new AI-enabled services into its Link communications app. “We are integrating our customer care app with AI, which will have AI agents resolving the queries of customers automatically.”

Smarter, more sustainable services with Rakuten AI

Leveraging the power of Rakuten’s AI tech, the team is taking things even further, highlighting a transformation from reactive to anticipatory functionality: “Up until now, people asked AI questions and got answers,” Suzuki explained. “From now, AI will become your concierge. It will predict what you want and offer it to you before you ask.”

Retail planning is another area AI is proving advantageous, with analysts crunching data from across the broader Rakuten ecosystem to choose store locations that maximize coverage and convenience. Physical touchpoints are also in the works, as Sriwastawa introduced new AI-driven self-service kiosks: “Customers can basically get a SIM or e-SIM in a couple of minutes, something which usually takes about half an hour to an hour.”

On the sustainability front, Rakuten Mobile is making use of a RAN Intelligent Controller to dial radio capacity up or down depending on demand. This can mean shutting down small-scale base stations during the night in office districts, or reducing the number of active cell sites when network traffic is low.

The goal is to cut down on electricity consumption without degrading the customer experience, Sriwastawa said. “This year we have a target to reduce our energy consumption by 20%. We are close to 15% already.”

5G standalone: What’s it all about?

Rakuten Mobile is preparing to launch its 5G standalone (SA) network, allowing devices to connect directly to a 5G core instead of relying on 4G infrastructure in the background.

Sriwastawa says that this upgrade will enable far lower latency – less than ten milliseconds; fast enough to make video calls or cloud gaming feel instantaneous – while also paving the way for unique use cases like network slicing, which allows carriers to carve out dedicated lanes of connectivity.

“We can create a slice for first responders which will have better connectivity and priority,” he explained. The same technology could also power consumer features: “Using our Link app, if the user wants to have a higher throughput to watch something, they can say, grant me a slice of 50 Mbps for one hour. This can be guaranteed.”

To supply the new 5G core, Rakuten Mobile has announced partnerships with Cisco, Nokia, and F5. The partnerships promise to extend Rakuten Mobile’s broader pitch: that a fully cloud-native, AI-integrated core can unlock faster speeds, better reliability, and more innovative products than what was possible on legacy architecture.

“Through the power of 5G, AI, and strategic partnerships with leading innovators like Cisco, Nokia, and F5, we are empowering customers in Japan with state-of-the-art, secure, and sustainable mobile connectivity.”

The next frontier: Rakuten Mobile from space

The panel then turned the audience’s attention in a new direction: the sky. President Yazawa framed non-terrestrial coverage (connectivity directly from space) as the next revolution in telecom.

Rakuten Mobile continues to work with AST SpaceMobile, launching satellite antenna arrays “36 times larger than Starlink” with the aim of bringing broadband from orbit from 2026. Unlike most current satellite services, which support only text messages and emergency calls, these giant arrays are designed to deliver full broadband coverage directly to regular smartphones.

This new capability has the potential to change not only disaster response, but everyday connectivity, making broadband service as ubiquitous as GPS. “We will soon cover the entire land area,” explained Yazawa. “Even the sea, remote islands, Hokkaido’s wetlands – places humans don’t usually go.”

A crucial differentiator

Rakuten Mobile has carved out a distinctive strategy: use Open RAN architecture to bring down costs, pass the savings onto customers, and layer AI into every aspect of the business – from predictive maintenance to SIM card vending machines. Sriwastawa thinks that the next five years will be a crucial period for Rakuten Mobile.

“From 2025-30, before 6G arrives, we have to create a differentiator,” he stressed. “And from a technology perspective, the biggest opportunities are AI, and how the non-terrestrial network and terrestrial networks will work together.”