Rakuten is using India as a key global innovation hub for OpenRAN and 6G, top executive says

Japan’s Rakuten Group uses India as a major global innovation and engineering hub for OpenRAN, cloud and 6G development, and plans to hire more engineers across its three research and development (R&D) centers this year is. The group, through its subsidiary Rakuten Symphony, is looking to partner with Indian carriers to support OpenRAN 5G and small cell deployments.

Rakuten Symphony houses the group’s communications and network technology and IP.

Sharad Srivastava, co-CEO of Rakuten Mobile and president of Rakuten Symphony, said in his first media interaction since taking over the post, “India will be a major global innovation and engineering hub for our company, and especially for Rakuten Symphony.” ” he told Money Control. Scheduled to take office in August 2023.

“In all of our past acquisitions, including Altiostar and Robin.io, our R&D center was in India. And we set up a big lab in India that is now used by all our business units. ” he said.

Rakuten Symphony has approximately 4,000 employees worldwide, the majority of whom are based in its India offices in Bangalore, Indore, and Pune. Other major offices are in Germany (to support the rollout of the 1&1 mobile network), Japan (to support operations within Rakuten Mobile), and the United States.

“…nearly 85% of Symphony’s employees are in India. We are recruiting primarily for cloud and ORAN development in India. We have started to focus on 6G development. More overseas As we expand our business and add more customers around the world, we will expand our local force to support our customers through our NOC centers,” the top executive said.

6G focus

Rakuten has started cooperation on 6G technology with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). “We are working with IIT on the cloud and observability aspects of his 6G.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year announced India’s 6G vision ‘Bharat 6G Vision’ document, which envisions India to be at the forefront of developing, developing and deploying 6G technology by 2030. India is aiming for 10% of Indian intellectual property rights (IPR). 6G domain.

Related article: India Mobile Congress 2023: India will lead the world in 6G, says PM Modi

Following this, global telecom companies such as Ericsson and Nokia set up R&D teams to work on 6G in India.

All multinational telcos expect India to play a major role in the coming years and become a strong hub for 6G research and development (R&D) and application development.

Focus on OpenRAN transactions

Globally, Rakuten Symphony has three large-scale greenfield 5G deployment deals with carriers, including German telco 1&1 and US telco Dish. The executive said the company is currently focused on winning OpenRAN contracts from brownfield operators globally, including carriers in India.

“OpenRAN is a flawed technology for greenfield deployments. Many major carriers, including Vodafone Group and Telefonica, are conducting trials and conducting proofs of concept. After AT&T signed a deal with Ericsson for OpenRAN, other All telcos are accelerating their plans to deploy OpenRAN in their networks,” Sriwasthava said.

Srivastava said the company is open to starting discussions with established Indian carriers Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea for OpenRAN-related 5G deployments.

“…we have just started discussions with Airtel. The first phase of 5G is almost complete. Depending on their OpenRAN strategy, we will continue,” he said.

Rakuten is already working with the Sunil Mittal-led telco on small cell deployment in the country. “This is a small-scale deployment. But now Indian telcos are increasing their focus on small cells to support 5G networks. We are once again pitching in the small cell space in India. I plan on doing it.”

The Japanese company also plans to begin negotiations with cash-strapped telecom company Vodafone Idea to introduce OpenRAN 5G.

Cash-strapped Vodafone Idea is considering both OpenRAN and vRAN technologies to reduce the cost of deploying its upcoming 5G network. Last year, we launched proofs of concept (PoC) with South Korea’s Samsung for virtualized RAN, or VRAN, and with Mavenir for OpenRAN-based 5G networks.

Private 5G and cloud opportunities

Rakuten Symphony is also doubling down on private 5G opportunities. The company has partnered with his Tech Mahindra, Infosys and Cognizant and leverages its sales force to sell solutions to enterprises.

“We intend to have a solid go-to-market strategy in 2024. We had earlier talked with Cisco about leveraging opportunities in the private 5G space in India. But not much is happening in India. , we can fully support private 5G opportunities in the country,” the executive said.

While private 5G opportunities may be a while away for Rakuten Symphony, the company hopes to leverage its Robin.io acquisition to quickly enter the Indian cloud market. In the cloud space he competes with the likes of VMware.

“…We work with a lot of partners in the cloud. OK, some companies don’t go for the public cloud, but some companies are big enough to deploy a private cloud… In India, that’s why. “Globally, we are gaining good traction and we are aiming to acquire almost all major Tier 1 carriers,” he said.