By Mike Robuck

Cisco, Rakuten ink O-RAN agreement

Cisco and Rakuten Symphony are joining forces once again to accelerate the delivery of cloud-native, virtualised 4G and 5G mobile networks based on open RAN technology.

On Monday in Barcelona, Cisco and Rakuten Symphony, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rakuten Mobile, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop a joint go-to-market model to help service providers transform and modernise their network architecture.

Key elements of the joint solutions include Cisco’s mobile, routing, switching, and automation portfolios, along with Rakuten Symphony’s open RAN, orchestration and the full suite of Rakuten Symphony’s Symworld applications. The two companies will work together to validate and certify those solutions for service providers and deliver systems that are expected to be developed from design to deployment and operations.

“Using open interfaces, virtualisation, 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,” said Rakuten Symphony CEO Tareq Amin. The companies didn’t provide a timeline for when their joint solutions would be generally available.