Rakuten Mobile CTO Tareq Amin (pictured) told an open RAN event a dedicated software suite it offers was gaining traction globally, with the company having held talks with more than 75 C-level executives about its digital internet assets.

In a presentation to the FierceWireless Open RAN Summit, Amin explained the company had held talks with operator CEOs, CTOs and various other business unit heads about Rakuten Symphony, a business unit it established early last month to oversee its global push of cloud-native open RAN infrastructure and services.

Amin stated Rakuten believes the division offers “a fundamental transformation of technology and business models”.

The new business unit includes its Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP).

Amin added he doesn’t consider Rakuten as purely a mobile operator (it is the latest entrant in Japan’s busy market), following its move to target the B2B segment. He calls the company an OTT provider which has moved into connectivity. “I think our culture and DNA is one of the reasons allowing us to think outside the box to deliver on a breakthrough architecture for our network”.

He insisted open RAN technology is “absolutely ready”.

“If you believe software and cloud are the right technologies to invest your energy in, I would say absolutely open RAN is a must.”

In terms of cost savings, he noted when companies disaggregate the hardware and start to acquire knowledge about component pricing, “you are deemed to be too dangerous, because you discover things that nobody wants you to know about”.

He added the price efficiency “is massive and we are just scratching the surface on what is possible”.

In June, Amin said the company plans to provide full transparency regarding the cost structure and architecture of its network in the coming months.