NEW DELHI: Saudi Arabia’s Etisalat on Monday said it has inked a partnership with Rakuten Mobile Inc. to develop a blueprint for mobile broadband networks and Open RAN technology based on Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP).Under this agreement, the two companies will jointly develop a reference design for the mobile operator’s customers across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia regions based on open standards and a cloud-native, software-centric, and fully virtualized/containerized platform.“We’re excited to work with Etisalat to build a new generation of telecom infrastructure based on the Rakuten Communications Platform which will bring cost-effective mobile services to their customers across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia,” said Tareq Amin, Representative Director, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Rakuten Mobile.“This is a unique opportunity for Etisalat and Rakuten Mobile to co-explore and further develop next-generation mobile networks based on RCP that will allow Etisalat to leverage a cost-effective, cloud-native, Open RAN based mobile network architecture that is secure, scalable and reliable,” said Hatem Bamatraf, Chief Technology Officer, Etisalat International.

Source: Economic Times March 22, 2021 08:15 UTC