Rakuten Mobile continued an aggressive push to line up operator partners by signing an MoU with Saudi Telecom Company (STC) targeting faster delivery of mobile services through the use of open, virtualised technology.

In a statement, the companies said they will explore opportunities in areas including fully autonomous digital platforms hosted on cloud networks, open RAN deployment options for greenfield and brownfield use-cases, and new operating models.

STC chief Nasser Al Nasser said the MoU “aims to expand our global partnerships and help diversify our strategic growth.”

“We are confident this MoU will bring tangible results in terms of developing a new advance technology strategy and accelerating the early deployment of novel and sophisticated services.”

Mickey Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten Mobile, said it is “excited” about the collaboration and “sharing our know-how of building new-generation telecoms infrastructure”.

“We believe that our open architecture and advanced open RAN technologies will help define a new generation of operators.”

Telefonica signed an MoU with Rakuten Mobile last month covering development of open RAN technology, 5G core networks and supporting operational systems.

Rakuten Mobile entered the Japanese market in April with a fully virtualised mobile network.