Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
June 17th 2021 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM India Standard Time
Bharat Exhibitions has launched the 1st edition of Open RAN India 2021 Virtual Conference scheduled on June 17, 2021. The conference, sponsored by Altiostar, will be a dynamic forum for senior executives of leading telecom operators, enterprises, Govt. agencies to understand and formulate strategies to enhance the networks in line with business needs. A RAN provides radio access and assists to coordinate network resources across wireless devices. Devices primarily connect to cellular network via LTE or 5G New Radio connections. Silicon chips in the core network as well as the user equipment (like phone or laptop) help enable the functionality of the RAN. Open RANs can support multiple-input, multiple-output antennas, wide spectrum bandwidths, multi-band carrier aggregation and more. This evolution of Open RAN for 5G will have a huge impact on wireless technologies and these RANs of the future will also contribute to the lower latency that makes 5G so power
https://www.altiostar.com/open-ran-india-2021-virtual-conference/
Thu, June 3, 2021, 8:05 PM
Noah Kerner, Acorns CEO, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the company going public via $2.2 billion SPAC, the meme stock mania, and early investing.
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/...t-app-acorns-public-180526783.html
By Robyn Ma
Investment app Acorns has announced plans to go public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, otherwise known as a SPAC (CNBC). The app will be valued at $2.2 billion, more than double its private valuation from 2019 (Reuters). Several institutional investors will sponsor this deal.
https://www.thecorporatelawacademy.com/forum/ams/...ic-via-a-spac.81/
Berlin’s €2B plan to wean off Huawei (Nokia and Ericsson too)
The plan comes as European governments increasingly take steps to box out Chinese tech giant Huawei from 5G-rollout plans due to security concerns. The restrictions mean telecoms operators have become more reliant on Sweden's Ericsson and Finland's Nokia, triggering calls from telecoms operators and some lawmakers to open up the supply chain to new players.
The German draft proposal includes over €300 million of investment in Open RAN technology, €237 million for a 6G research hub and €250 million to boost demand and expand 5G networks.
The draft also earmarked €550 million of German public investment in Europe's microchip market through a joint project, announced Tuesday, between the government, the EU and local industry players.
The draft proposal was first reported by Handelsblatt.
Looking for new 5G
The government wants to prioritize "open RAN" technologies throughout its telecoms investment plan, a concept that would chop up the 5G supply chain into smaller pieces and break the market power of large end-to-end vendors like Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia.
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-huawei-telecoms-plan
https://seekingalpha.com/article/...-mobile-business-and-new-alliance
Denn zu der nachstehenden Aussage wird uns keine Zielvorgabe genannt, die 4,1 Millionen Customer Applications am 11. Mai als unter den Erwartungen erscheinen lassen würden.
„After slightly more than a year, Rakuten disclosed that its "total cumulative number of customer applications" for its mobile services was 4.1 million as of May 11, 2021.“
https://seekingalpha.com/article/...-mobile-business-and-new-alliance
https://telecoms.com/509763/...e-eyes-tremendous-profitability-ahead/
https://itcblogs.currentanalysis.com/2021/05/28/...-network-provider/
„While Tier 1 operators may look towards scale and working in environments they are already used to, Rakuten’s approach has value for Tier 2 and Tier 3 players, including private network operators, which would value that experience. Moreover, as this market evolves, there is potential for collaboration alongside competition. RCP is being built on Kubernetes, and while Rakuten has expressed that it is aiming for deployment onto existing operator data centers and servers, it is not unfeasible that the company could begin to offer some components of its RCP IP on other telco cloud platforms from technology companies or offer its VNFs or OSS/BSS to the big network vendors.“
https://itcblogs.currentanalysis.com/2021/05/28/...-network-provider/
Rakuten Group's quarterly fintech revenue 2011-2020
Published by C. Diep, May 31, 2021
In the fourth quarter of 2020, the fintech sector revenue of the Rakuten Group amounted to around 151 billion Japanese yen, up almost 14 percent compared to the fourth quarter of the previous year. Rakuten offers services such as Rakuten Card, Rakuten Bank, and Rakuten Securities. The company is headquartered in Tokyo, where it was founded in 1997.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/223360/...internet-finance-sales/
2 hours ago
Success sometimes breeds skepticism. As Rakuten’s world-first revolutionary, Open RAN mobile network continues to roll out in Japan, the company’s progress has sparked interest and raised questions around the world.
Does the software-driven network work in cities? Will it slow down adoption of 5G-fast service? Since it depends on multiple vendors and off-the-shelf components, does it ensure security? And perhaps most importantly, does it really cut costs?
Recently, European telecom regulators invited Rakuten Mobile CTO Tareq Amin to offer some answers about Open RAN at the flagship IIC/BEREC Telecommunications & Media Forum that attracted some 400 European regulators and policymakers.
Platform architecture embracing cloud
Instead of an expensive, traditional, vertically integrated network with a single vendor, Rakuten Mobile aimed to build what Amin described as “destructive platform architecture, built on the merit of security, diverse supply chain, hardware disaggregation and embracing cloud.”
Today’s mobile networks require hardware updates at the mobile base stations to improve performance and the user experience. “In our network, upgrades are done through software,” Amin told host Dan Sjöblom, Director General, Swedish Post and Telecom Authority. The result: A remarkably flexible network that is autonomously maintained and upgraded with minimal support from engineering teams.
Cost savings; Urban rollout
Bottom up, mix-and-match open RAN also lowers costs over traditional vertically integrated networks; that’s 30 to 40 percent savings for present 4G technology and up to 50 percent savings for next-generation 5G networks. Rural regions have finally become economical to connect.
Rakuten Mobile’s unique mobile architecture works well in dense cities, too — “we have rolled it out in Japan’s biggest cities, Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka and by the summer of 2021, we will be at 96% coverage of Japan’s population, about five years ahead of schedule,” said Amin. Rakuten Mobile also launched its 5G service in 2020 and is currently expanding network buildout across Japan.
Supply chain transparency allows greater control of security
At the IIC/BEREC Telecommunications & Media Forum, many of the regulators’ questions concerned security. The assumption may be that a single system built by a single vendor is safer than one composed of parts from multiple vendors. In fact, Amin noted that the opposite is true.
As an open system, it is easy to switch out any troublesome or risky equipment with other equipment from safe sources. With supply chain transparency — Rakuten Mobile knows what is going into its network. Our network was built with security in mind from the start. “We have no black boxes,” Amin said. “We have 100 percent visibility.”
https://rakuten.today/blog/...ht-rakuten-mobile-open-ran-network.html
2021-06-07 by rehow
https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000358.000011088.html
https://financefwd.com/de/acorns/
Acorns Gets $30M From PayPal, Rakuten For Investing App
https://www.socaltech.com/...rakuten_for_investing_app/s-0065014.html
JUNE 8, 2021
10 hours ago
Mobile networks are undergoing a significant transformation, with a movement away from the closed, proprietary systems of legacy networks to more open, efficient and flexible systems known in the industry as Open RAN.
ON OVERALL PERFORMANCE, RAKUTEN MOBILE’S OPEN RAN NETWORK IN TOKYO SCORED 920 POINTS OUT OF 1,000 FOR A “VERY GOOD” RATING.
In Open RAN, the interfaces and protocols between the different parts of the mobile RAN (radio access network) are open, standardized and interoperable, allowing the network to be built with hardware and software from different vendors. It offers mobile network operators the freedom to choose hardware and software functions from their preferred vendors – reducing costs, increasing flexibility and offering freedom from the traditional approach of vendor lock-in.
While these characteristics alone are already piquing the interest of mobile network operators around the globe, there is still the question of how networks built on Open RAN standards perform compared to legacy networks. Rakuten Mobile is the world’s first and currently the only nation-wide commercial-scale network built entirely on Open RAN standards. A recent report by independent analyst firm umlaut addresses those performance questions head-on by comparing Rakuten Mobile data to that of operators in major cities around the world – and the outlook is decidedly positive.
ON THE NETWORK SPEED SIDE, RAKUTEN MOBILE’S NETWORK IN TOKYO RECEIVED THE HIGHEST RATING AMONG THE CITIES IN THE COMPARISON.
umlaut made an independent review of Rakuten Mobile’s 4G Open RAN mobile network in Japan and compared its performance in Tokyo with mobile networks in other large, densely populated cities. Network performance was calculated based on umlaut’s highly regarded methodology, with ratings given as “umlaut scores.” The report focuses on Rakuten Mobile’s own network, excluding data on performance for users on its roaming partner’s network.
With leading scores on network speed and a high overall ranking, Rakuten Mobile’s network performance clearly demonstrates that not only are the concerns raised about performance unfounded but that Open RAN offers the potential to bring disruptive innovation and efficiencies to mobile operators worldwide, transforming the way operators build networks and deliver services to customers.
https://rakuten.today/blog/rakuten-mobile-open-ran-umlaut-report.html
Looking at the overall performance, Rakuten Mobile’s Open RAN network in Tokyo scored 920 points out of 1,000 for a “very good” rating. Compared to other operators in the report, Rakuten Mobile in Tokyo ranked highly, surpassing the top rating networks in eight cities and achieving a level of performance close to the top-ranking networks in the remaining five cities.
https://rakuten.today/blog/rakuten-mobile-open-ran-umlaut-report.html
On the network speed side, Rakuten Mobile’s network in Tokyo received the highest rating among the cities in the comparison, with a score of 376 points out of 400, 10 points higher than Seattle in second place.
https://rakuten.today/blog/rakuten-mobile-open-ran-umlaut-report.html
08 April 2021 | Research
Anil Rao
Article | PDF (4 pages) | Automated Assurance| Service Design and Orchestration| Network Automation and Orchestration
"The introduction of digital infrastructures and the need to accelerate service innovation and deliver superior digital experiences is placing unprecedented pressure on operations."
Communications service providers (CSPs) worldwide are preparing for the 5G era by implementing a multi-pronged transformation journey that encompasses all parts of their businesses, including offering digital services, creating a digital experience and deploying virtualised networks. The transformation towards a fully digital, 5G business is happening at the same time as CSPs continue to serve customers with networks, products and systems developed in an earlier era. A 5G digital operations platform is an important part of CSPs’ preparations for the 5G digital era.
https://www.analysysmason.com/research/content/...-rma07-rma01-rma02/
04 June 2021 | Research
Anil Rao
Case study | PPTX and PDF (5 slides) | Automated Assurance
Rakuten Mobile set out to provide the world’s first end-to-end cloud-native mobile network that runs at a fraction of the cost of a traditional mobile network.
This case study provides:
• an overview of Rakuten Mobile's goals for network, service and customer experience
• analysis of how RADCOM is enabling Rakuten Mobile to achieve these goals
• an overview of RADCOM’s ACE platform capabilities in the context of Rakuten Mobile’s implementation.
https://www.analysysmason.com/research/content/...le-assurance-rma01/
Consumer Savings App Acorns To Go Public Via SPAC At $2.2B Valuation
https://www.pymnts.com/pymnts-post/news/ipo/2021/...-valuation/?c=ipo
Open radio access networks (Open RAN) significantly enhance how mobile networks operate. The telecom industry, and especially the RAN segment, is several years behind the innovation curve due to tightly integrated hardware and software from just a few vendors. Open RAN can change that.
The IT industry has long benefited from a software-centric approach and transitioned to an open model where software companies compete and innovate. Now the telecom industry is going through the same transformation in many aspects of the network, but especially in the RAN. This change began with the deployment of networks such as Rakuten Mobile in Japan and the DISH Open RAN 5G network in the US. Mobile network operators (MNOs) throughout the world, including many brownfield networks, are now trialing and deploying Open RAN.
Open RAN is part of a shift in deploying and maintaining software defined networks (SDNs) and automation. SDN approaches associated with virtualization and vendor neutrality offer new ways to manage the mobile network. Orchestration and automation play an important role in demonstrating the potential of Open RAN by reducing human intervention in maintaining the network. Long-term transformations are also occurring in the RAN, including how Open RAN will enable new 5G use cases and the overall deployment of 5G networks.
https://www.5gtechnologyworld.com/...nd-maintain-an-open-ran-network/