Japanese telco Rakuten Mobile has paired with 1Finity to ramp up its Open RAN deployment in the country.

The deployment of 1Finity's radios follows an agreement penned between the two companies last year.

As part of the collaboration, Fujitsu's 1Finity has supported Rakuten's commercial Open RAN deployment through its radio portfolio.

The deployment has supported Rakuten's 5G Sub6 (3.7GHz) network expansion and has included 1Finity's O-RAN-compliant 44R21 radios, which can deliver high power despite their compact and lightweight form factor, according to the company. Because of this, the radios help reduce installation space and lower lease costs. 

These radios have been able to integrate with Rakuten Symphony’s vCU/DU and Rakuten Mobile’s network management system.

“Our continued work with Rakuten Mobile enables us to support their goals of building a sustainable, open 5G architecture to deliver a high-quality customer experience,” said Patrik Eriksson, vice president and head of the mobile system business unit at 1Finity.

“This is yet another example of how 1Finity is driving global Open RAN adoption with a robust portfolio of high-performance, energy-efficient radio units.”

The rollout of Rakuten's Open RAN network has led to the company recently surpassing 10 million subscribers. Rakuten established itself as a mobile network operator in 2018, before launching services as an MNO in October 2019.

“Rakuten Mobile is committed to building the most advanced and efficient cloud-native 5G network, and 1Finity’s high-performance radios are a key component of this strategy,” said Sudhakar Pandey, head of RAN department, Rakuten Mobile.

In addition to Fujitsu's 1Finity, other Open RAN radio partners for the telco include Samsung Networks and NEC. Cisco, Airspan Networks, and Tech Mahindra are some of its software partners.