Airspan to Partner With Rakuten Mobile

Bringing its comprehensive 4G and 5G solutions to the world’s first fully virtualized cloud-native mobile network

Airspan Networks announced today its partnership with Rakuten Mobile, a subsidiary of Rakuten, Inc., a global leader in internet services headquatered in Tokyo, bringing 5G mmWave and rural connectivity solutions to drive network efficiency and enhance the mobile user experience.

Airspan’s open RAN platforms will provide Rakuten Mobile the flexibility to disrupt the economics of traditional network operators and lay the foundation for transformational 5G architectures. With over half a million systems deployed globally, Airspan brings its proven disruptive economics to the fully virtualized Rakuten Mobile network.

“We are thrilled to partner with Airspan to build Japan’s newest mobile network,” said Tareq Amin, Chief Technology Officer of Rakuten Mobile. “Their innovative 4G and 5G solutions and form factor will allow Rakuten Mobile to rapidly scale our deployment.

“We are very proud of the innovations we have delivered to the market over the past few years our 5G partnership with Rakuten Mobile is an important milestone for the industry as we continue to disrupt network deployment economics. The scalability of our OpenRange28 platform will allow Rakuten Mobile to monetize their 5G network at a fraction of the cost of traditional network deployments and at an accelerated time-to-market.” said Henrik Smith-Petersen, Airspan’s Chief Sales & Marketing Officer.

Airspan’s mmWave virtualized Air5G OpenRange28 platform utilizes Qualcomm’s FSM100xx 5G chipset and supports open RAN architectures, seamlessly connecting to Rakuten Mobile’s virtualized BBU to deliver the world’s most advanced open interface virtualized RAN solution.  The OpenRange28 mmWave platform supports multiple functional splits for the widest possible set of deployment options, ensuring Rakuten Mobile customers benefit from the highest level of efficiency and the best user experience in Japan.

“Airspan is proud to support Rakuten Mobile with their ground breaking wireless connectivity vision that will not only improve convenience for their users, but also create new business opportunities to solve social issues, truly unleashing the potential of 5G for Japan” said Eric Stonestrom, CEO Airspan Networks Inc.