MTN Group and Rakuten Symphony have agreed to run live 4G and 5G OpenRAN Proof of Concept (PoC) trials in South Africa, Nigeria and Liberia using the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP). The trials will start in 2022 and combine RCP OpenRAN equipment with advanced automation and autonomous network capabilities. The products are currently deployed by Rakuten Mobile in Japan and include cloud orchestration, zero-touch provisioning and automation of radio site commissioning and network integration.
The MoU will enable the launch of new services more quickly, cost-effectively and seamlessly, MTN said. The mobile operator and Rakuten Symphony will be collaborating with Accenture and Tech Mahindra to conduct the trials in South Africa, Nigeria and Liberia.
Rakuten Mobile made a full-scale launch of commercial services on the world's first fully virtualised cloud-native mobile network in 2020 in Japan, and launched Rakuten Symphony in 2021 to bring its innovations to other operators. Rakuten Symphony brings together Rakuten's telco products, services and systems under a single banner to offer 4G and 5G infrastructure and platforms to customers worldwide.
MTN has already been testing open RAN equipment in several markets and is an active member of the Telecom Infra Project. The operator announced several other open RAN suppliers last year.