Cisco and Rakuten Symphony have agreed to collaborate on the development of cloud-native, virtualized 4G/5G mobile networks based on Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) technology.
Both companies announced the partnership at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, saying they are combining their skills to provide solutions that would enable mobile operators to compete more effectively in the cloud era.
Cisco's mobile, routing, switching, and automation portfolios are prominent components of the solutions, as are Rakuten Symphony‘s Open RAN, orchestration, and the full suite of Rakuten Symphony's Symworld apps.
The two companies said that they plan to work together to validate and certify these solutions for service providers and deliver systems that perform across the full lifecycle from design to deployment and operations.
“I am very pleased to see both organizations come together and combine strengths. We believe our collaboration with Cisco will bring something quite unique in the industry solving the industry's current challenges when it comes to deploying new generations of networks. The principles of open architecture, cloud, virtualization and automation are essential elements of the new networks that operators will be rolling out in the near future,” said Tareq Amin, CEO, Rakuten Symphony.
“Using open interfaces, virtualization, cloud, and automation from Rakuten Symphony along with Cisco's well-established network footprint and offering will give telcos an opportunity to build and operate their networks in significantly better ways,” Amin said.
“We have proven what the benefits of an open, cloud-driven, 5G-powered mobile network can do to transform the way people connect to do more and get more of everything today,” said Jonathan Davidson, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Mass-Scale Infrastructure Group, Cisco.
“Together with Rakuten Symphony, we have the unique opportunity to offer global service providers an alternative to legacy RAN, with a turnkey option to transform their networks to be more intuitive and automated to support the ever-evolving needs for connectivity,” Davidson added.
