Rakuten Symphony and Celona believe they can lower barriers for businesses seeking to deploy private 5G networks by developing an almost as-a-service type arrangement which promotes the Japanese company’s open RAN agenda.
The pair are combining Rakuten’s cloud-native, 5G-compatible open RAN platform with an enterprise-focused LAN from Celona, a tie-up they stated would take size out of the equation regarding which businesses could access private networks.
“Companies are facing the challenge of modernising their operations while managing complex, fragmented network environments across different locations,” Rakuten SVP and global sales head for its Enterprise Business Anirban Chakravarti said.
Rakuten and Celona stated their work would benefit companies operating in international logistics, manufacturing, agriculture, ports and mining, among others.
They intend to provide a choice of wireless unit vendors to help tailor networks to businesses’ requirements. Multiple frequency bands are to be covered to overcome any regional variances.
The companies are committed to developing a system which is fully-managed and can be used for IoT and mission-critical services.
Celona SVP of product and field engineering Punito Shetty said the collaboration would broaden the industrial sectors it can target private 5G at and help it provide “large, asset-intensive organisations” with an open, interoperable network which is ready for “future, AI-driven automation” requirements.
Source: https://www.mobileworldlive.com/rakuten/rakuten-celona-plot-open-ran-private-5g/
