Etisalat inks partnership with Rakuten to jointly work on Open RAN technology

Saudi Arabia’s Etisalat on Monday said it has inked a partnership with Rakuten Mobile Inc. to develop a blueprint for mobile broadband networks and Open RAN technology based on Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP).

Under this agreement, the two companies will jointly develop a reference design for the mobile operator’s customers across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia regions based on open standards and a cloud-native, software-centric, and fully virtualized/containerized platform.

“We’re excited to work with Etisalat to build a new generation of telecom infrastructure based on the Rakuten Communications Platform which will bring cost-effective mobile services to their customers across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia,” said Tareq Amin, Representative Director, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Rakuten Mobile.

“This is a unique opportunity for Etisalat and Rakuten Mobile to co-explore and further develop next-generation mobile networks based on RCP that will allow Etisalat to leverage a cost-effective, cloud-native, Open RAN based mobile network architecture that is secure, scalable and reliable,” said Hatem Bamatraf, Chief Technology Officer, Etisalat International.