Business Wire

Rakuten Mobile and NEC Begin Production of Open RAN 5G Radio Equipment

24.3.2020 05:00:00 EET | Business Wire | Press release

Share

Rakuten Mobile, Inc. and NEC Corporation today announced that production of the 5th generation mobile communications system (5G) radio unit (RU) jointly developed by the two companies has started at NEC Platforms, Ltd.’s Fukushima Plant, and the first unit has been shipped.

“NEC’s 5G RU, developed and produced in Japan, will play a very important role in Rakuten Mobile’s fully virtualized cloud native mobile network,” said Tareq Amin, Rakuten Mobile Director, Vice President and CTO. “With the launch of production of the 5G radio unit, we will begin work on the construction of our 5G base stations and will aim to provide our subscribers with a cost efficient, highly secure, high quality 5G service.”

“NEC is very proud to be part of Rakuten Mobile’s advanced 5G network,” said Atsuo Kawamura, Executive Vice President and President of the Network Services Business Unit, NEC Corporation. “The 5G RU, produced at our Fukushima Plant, conforms with open architecture standards, and comes in a compact form factor with low power consumption. By expanding the open 5G ecosystem, NEC will contribute to the creation of new mobile services around the world.”

The new domestically produced, high quality 5G RU is equipped with a 3.7 GHz frequency band massive MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) antenna in a compact, lightweight form factor with low power consumption. With the 5G RU, Rakuten Mobile will begin the buildout of its 5G network, starting with the construction of base stations in the Tokyo area*1, and work toward the launch of 5G commercial services in June 2020.

Rakuten Mobile is building the world’s first end-to-end fully virtualized cloud native network*2, and in October 2019 in Japan successfully implemented the world’s first open, virtualized, distributed radio access network (OpenRAN). In addition, Rakuten Mobile and NEC are also closely collaborating on BSS and OSS solutions for Rakuten Mobile’s 4G network operations.

*1 Rakuten Mobile received licenses for 5G radio stations (base stations) from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications for Setagaya City and Koto City on March 6, 2020.
*2 For a large scale commercial mobile network (as of October 1, 2019), Research: Stella Associa

To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.

Contact information

Rakuten Corporate Communications Department
global-pr@mail.rakuten.com

NEC Corporate Communications Division
Joseph Jasper
j-jasper(at)nec.com

About Business Wire

For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.

Subscribe to releases from Business Wire

Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Latest releases from Business Wire

Visa Data Shows Stablecoins Gaining Traction in Business Payments1.10.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release

Today, Visa (NYSE: V) shared new data showing the growing adoption of stablecoins across business payments and commercial card programs, underscoring how stablecoins are increasingly being used as financial infrastructure. The findings come as businesses, financial institutions and payment providers increasingly explore stablecoins for settlement, treasury management, payouts and cross-border commerce. New Visa data shows: Approximately 17% of stablecoin-linked card volume in FY26 year-to-date occurred across business and commercial card programs. Visa today supports more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs spanning consumer, business and commercial card activity. Payments volume across these programs has grown nearly 200% year over year. Businesses are increasingly exploring stablecoins for settlement, treasury management, payouts and cross-border commerce. "Businesses aren't looking for new payment technologies for the sake of innovation. They’re looking for trusted, reliable wa

New Research: Organizations with Strong Process Context 5x More Likely to Deliver Successful AI Outcomes1.10.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release

Organizations with strong process context are five times more likely to report very successful AI outcomes, according to new research from The Hackett Group® and ARIS, highlighting the critical role business understanding plays in enabling enterprises to deploy agentic AI at scale. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261001144480/en/ The Process Context Study 2026 found that companies experienced with strong process context were 5x more likely to be seeing successful outcomes from AI The Process Context Study 2026 examines how prepared Global 2000 companies are to deploy agents into core business processes and how process context is key to agents operating reliably and securely at enterprise-level, driving measurable new business value. The findings expose a significant gap between enterprise AI ambition and current operational readiness: 86% of respondents believe agents cannot be deployed reliably without proces

NetApp Recognizes Winners of 2026 North America Partner Awards1.10.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release

NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, today announced at NetApp INSIGHT 2026 the winners of its North America Partner Awards for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY’26). NetApp’s strategic partnerships aid in providing NetApp products and solutions to solve the business challenges of their joint customers. The North America Partner Award winners have been instrumental in helping customers to build an Intelligent Data Infrastructure through the NetApp Platform, that can securely evolve and scale with their needs by driving sales of NetApp’s solutions and services. Each winning partner has demonstrated a thorough understanding of the NetApp portfolio and has proven their ability to leverage NetApp’s innovative solutions and services to give customers the confidence they need to overcome today’s biggest technology challenges. “Now more than ever, we must empower customers with AI-ready data that is secure by default and built for hybrid environments so they can achieve the

Moody’s Analytics and Allvue Launch Credit Risk Model to Identify Early Signs of Borrower Stress in Private Credit1.10.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release

Moody’s Corporation (NYSE: MCO), a global leader in risk assessment and credit analytics, and Allvue Systems, LLC, a leading technology and data provider for private capital markets, today announced the launch of the Moody’s Analytics EDF-X Private Credit Model, a new forward-looking credit risk model purpose-built for the private credit market. Built on Moody’s deep credit expertise and Allvue’s private credit performance data, the model identifies early signals of borrower stress, such as covenant waivers and payment-in-kind arrangements, well before they show up as missed payments or defaults. Moody’s projects private credit to approach $4 trillion in assets by 2030, and investors and lenders are increasingly seeking earlier visibility on where risk is building across portfolios. Unlike public credit markets where participants have the benefit of access to published credit ratings, financial disclosures, and transparent pricing, private credit often relies on proprietary credit asse

Thales Unveils a Global Framework to Protect Critical Organisations from Frontier AI Attacks1.10.2026 14:18:00 EEST | Press release

At the Thales Cyber Summit held in Paris (France) , Thales today unveiled a global response to the challenges created by Frontier AI models. Reasoning, autonomy and scale of these cutting-edge systems far exceed previous generations, and can accelerate vulnerability discovery, exploit development and cyberattack execution at machine speed. This marks a shift in AI from a tool that assists humans to one that acts autonomously, reshaping the threat landscape for organisations, the first of which those operating critical systems. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261001459724/en/ ©Thales “Frontier AI models represent a new inflection point for cybersecurity. The challenge is not only technological; it is about helping organisations act before risks materialize, understand the implications, assess their exposure, and, if an attack still succeeds, ensure resilience and quick recovery. By combining advanced technologi

In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.

Visit our pressroom
World GlobeA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.HiddenA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.Eye