Rakuten Symphony has secured a grant from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) to support Ukraine's deployment of Open RAN network infrastructure.

The grant will enable Japanese telco Rakuten Symphony to continue its Open RAN push in Ukraine, where it's already working with mobile carrier Kyivstar.

Rakuten has paired with Kyivstar to test Open RAN technology in Ukraine after signing a partnership in 2024.

In the company's announcement yesterday, Rakuten noted that the METI grant will provide support for Ukraine's network reconstruction amid the country's ongoing war with Russia, and also strengthen cooperation with central and Eastern European countries.

Rakuten stated that the total cost of the project is around 710 million yen ($4.3m), with up to 350 million yen ($2.14m) potentially covered through the METI subsidy. The aim of Rakuten Symphony and Kyivstar's partnership is to "establish a scalable business model for future commercial deployment."

The telco said it was selected due to its demonstration of being able to strengthen telecom infrastructure with virtualized Open RAN during the second round of grant applications.

"Under the project, Rakuten Symphony will provide a cloud-native Open RAN environment in Ukraine and conduct validation testing to facilitate the construction and operation of flexible, cost-efficient networks. Rakuten Mobile will participate as a key collaborating partner," said the company.

Beyond Open RAN technology, Rakuten and Kyivstar are also working together across other technologies, including OSS, cloud, and Rakuten's broader ecosystem.

During the first phase of Rakuten and Kyivstar's Open RAN testing, the companies have been able to validate key features and interoperability in a 4G environment. According to Rakuten, the second phase will involve "expanding these capabilities to 4G/5G configurations and conducting field tests."

These field tests will be carried out in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, with the aim of validating Open RAN performance in a live brownfield network.

"The deployment will evaluate both distributed RAN (D-RAN) and centralized RAN (C-RAN) architectures as part of a modernization initiative replacing legacy infrastructure, demonstrating the flexibility, resilience and operational benefits of open, cloud-native networks," noted Rakuten.

Further 5G tests will be conducted in a dedicated laboratory environment, providing a foundation for possible future commercial deployment.