Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket

Viber-Messenger: Kann er WhatsApp & Signal einholen?

Der überwiegend in Asien und Osteuropa verbreitete Messenger Viber schickt sich an, auch in Deutschland dem Platzhirsch WhatsApp Marktanteile abzujagen. Ob und wie das gelingen kann, darüber unterhalten wir uns mit Nadav Melnick, VP Product von Viber.

Von Alexander Kuch

https://www.teltarif.de/...hatsapp-alternative-signal/news/85636.html
 

First OpenRAN Network Japan in international comparison: Score of 926 is very good

Conclusion

The first OpenRAN mobile network of Rakuten Mobile in Japan achieves an umlaut Score of 926 dots out of 1000, which is "very good".

In Tokyo, Rakuten Mobile shows competitive performance with the leading operators in all tested cities.

In the speed category and in coverage Rakuten Mobile is competitive with the leading operators in all tested cities.

In Latency, the Rakuten Mobile network shows room for impro vements compared to leading operators in all tested cities.

https://www.umlaut.com/uploads/documents/...aut_Japan_AuditReport.pdf  

Rakuten Mobile’s DNA – template, replicate, automate, accelerate

5G Automation and Intelligent Edge

Rahul Atri, Managing Director, Rakuten Mobile Singapore, Head of Products & Engineering, Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP), has “worked for two or three greenfield companies” including Reliance Jio, which totally disrupted the Indian market, and various vendors.

Now at Rakuten Mobile, he works for the most disruptive greenfield of all and some think the business model behind his particular area of responsibility, the RCP, is more revolutionary than the network build. Atri says Rakuten Mobile’s network is foundational to RCP’s success.

How do you go about building a communication infrastructure unlike any other in the world? Atri says that although Rakuten Mobile sees itself very much as an IT company rather than a telco, it faced considerable challenges. Hence, “when we began, we focused primarily on the basic components – people, process then technology. Automation for us has been a necessity and part of the culture from the start,” he says.

Most of his team comes from a software engineering background. Even so, “We invested a lot in people to build the entrepreneurship, mindset and DNA to think differently, not as typical telcos. Then we focused a lot on processes to define how we go about ‘solutioning’ anything, and how to make the process more digital.

Fundamental to automation

The team soon realised that to automate everything demands a detailing & product mindset. “For instance, if we want to truly zero-touch auto-commission of RAN, we need to be very sure which server/node to logically map the radio site (Radio-vDU-vCU), how to validate & push the right configuration for the right endpoint (Serial Number/Mac Address, Geolocation),” Atri says.
In the interest of speed, Rakuten mobile was designing, building and operating the network at the same time. Atri explains, “We realised the whole idea of automation is not about integrating a couple of systems with APIs north and southbound, but to build integrated platforms to be able to manage/operate the network lifecycle end to end.”

“Automation was an absolute necessity because we had to launch this network and that’s how we were able to do that in one and a half years. We launched 200+ sites live on-air every day. We auto-configured 25+ cloud edges clouds every day, and then operations, especially in this COVID situation, became a little easier for us because we invested heavily in automation.”

He states, “For us there was no playbook, no cheat code, and no tools to configure the cloud-native network, and we had to learn & build our own. That is why we invested a lot in people and processes before the technology.”

Atri says, “[The team] went into detail of each and every call flow and each and every integration. We followed common practices of detailing & learning (failing fast & improving) end to end vertically & horizontally.”

https://www.futurenetasia.net/...icate-automate-accelerate-2/2021/06/
 

 

https://digcomall.org/podcast/19246/  

Rakuten Super Logistics is an outsourced cloud-hosted order fulfillment service for ecommerce retailers with high-velocity delivery requirements in the U.S. or abroad. It has seven strategically located warehouses across the U.S. and an international network of shippers.

Several Rakuten Super Logistics reviews have shown that the provider can reduce fulfillment overheads and, more importantly, allow you to focus on your core task, that is, growing the business. Likewise, as a specialist in the field, fulfillment companies like Rakuten have the agility and expertise to keep your deliveries in time and accurately, and build a positive reputation with your customers.

The provider offers the following services:

1. Cloud-hosted order management and inventory system to handle customer orders and processing

2. International and domestic freight service with pickup and drop-off

3. 1-2 day delivery to almost any point in the US via ground shipping

4. Dedicated client support with 3-hour response time

5. A suite of technology tools powered by SmartSuite for inventory, shipping and analytics

https://financesonline.com/...eview-pricing-storage-order-processing/  

Robin.io Brings Momentum, Growth into KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2021

Strong deployment growth, investment, patents and customer successes drive demos and 5G + enterprise storage use cases at this year’s event.

LOS ANGELES — KUBECON + CLOUDNATIVECON NA — October 11, 2021 — Robin.io brings demos, customer updates and significant milestones accomplished thus far in 2021 to KubeCon +

CloudNativeCon NA, this week, including a Series C investment round, important new partnerships, patent awards, an update of its 5G stack and other product enhancements. Robin.io provides cloud-native capabilities that help with automating deployment, scaling and lifecycle management of complex stateful applications on Kubernetes for both 5G and enterprise cloud native storage applications.

Robin.io has experienced tremendous growth in the past year with bookings surpassing 400% growth quarter-over-quarter when comparing the first two quarters of 2021 alone. This strong growth trend enabled Robin.io to close a $38M Series C investment in an oversubscribed round. Led by Rakuten Capital and joined by Clear Ventures, Emory University, Raine Next-Gen Communications and current investors, the Series C brings the total capital raised by Robin.io to $86 million.

https://www.realwire.com/releases/...o-KubeCon-CloudNativeCon-NA-2021
 

Exploring the FinTech Group Company’s Ecosystem Strategy

OCTOBER 12, 2021 by RNN

The FinTech Group Company is developing a new system for its various businesses to introduce customers to the Rakuten Ecosystem and expand the revenue base by increasing cross-use across the board, starting with Rakuten Card and Rakuten Pay. This initiative, known as the Rakuten FinTech Ecosystem, has been adopted as a main strategy of the Fintech Group Company. In this video, RNN introduces the various measures undertaken for promoting collaboration between services.

https://global.rakuten.com/corp/innovation/rnn/2021/2109_006/
 

Rakuten tunes up for an Open RAN unit IPO or stake sale

By Ray Le Maistre Oct 1, 2021

And to “further accelerate the global expansion of innovative mobile network solutions,” Rakuten Symphony will consider accepting capital and striking business partnerships with strategic partners, Rakuten Group noted in this announcement.

An IPO is one option, but a process with which Rakuten is immediately familiar – it has also just announced that it is preparing for an IPO of its banking unit.

But what would any investment partners get for their money? It’s early days for Symphony, but the 1&1 Drillisch deal is estimated to be worth between $2.29 billion and $2.74 billion over the next 10 years, while Hiroshi ‘Mickey’ Mikitani, Rakuten Group CEO, believes the addressable market for all that Symphony has to offer will be $100-150 billion within three years.

When (if?) Symphony sells a stake or files for an IPO, it will be interesting to see just what kind of valuation this kind of new age telecoms vendor can attract, especially when Open RAN is still in the early stages of maturity and yet to be proven at an operational and business level on a broad, global scale.

https://www.telecomtv.com/content/open-ran/...po-or-stake-sale-42537/


 

11 OCT 2021 Martha DeGrasse

Azita Arvani, GM of Rakuten Mobile Americas, explained to the Wireless Industry Association’s Connect (X) conference how the Japanese operator plans to deploy open RAN for other operators through its Symphony business unit, claiming its experience can be employed by others to save time and money.

Rakuten’s custom poles and radio antenna units are 40 per cent less expensive to deploy than traditional rooftop mounts, Arvani said.

The executive then outlined the Rakuten software stack, highlighting the closed loop automation and noting the software enables it to bring new 5G sites online within four minutes.

The goal is to ultimately create a “telco app store”, Arvani noted, echoing an objective expressed by equipment vendors in the open RAN space.

Success in Japan: Arvani noted networks metrics company OpenSignal ranked Rakuten ahead of competitors based on network speeds, customer experience and voice application performance.
Arvani predicted a plan to buy open RAN vendor Altiostar will assure access to dozens of patents and hundreds of developers.

https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/...symphony-benefits
 

Rakuten Mobile wanted to be more than just a carrier

But Rakuten Mobile wanted to be more than just a carrier. It became an equipment provider with the purchase of Altiostar, a company that provides Virtual RAN and Open RAN technology, which is headquartered near Boston, MA, with offices in Japan, Italy, the U.K., Mexico and India. As a result, Rakuten Symphony was born, which is a new business organization to market a cloud-native open RAN infrastructure and services, including the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP), to mobile network operators, enterprises and governments.  

“Altiostar is a pioneer in ORAN and VRAN, and they’re really the only ones that have under their belt, the actual deployment of a network. We are focusing our energies and resources into providing that solution to others,” Azita Arvani, General Manager, Rakuten Mobile Americas, said during her keynote at Connect(X) this week in Orlando.

https://insidetowers.com/...-expands-into-virtualized-oran-solutions/
 

Dish is not planning to build a 5G network like the ones from T-Mobile and Verizon. Instead, the company is using open RAN equipment from Taiwan's Microelectronics Technology Inc. (MTI) and Japan's Fujitsu, controlled by software from startups Mavenir and Altiostar, and will run all of its network functions inside Amazon's cloud. Dish is using software from NeXsysOne to organize and track its network buildout.

Mayo recalled his initial reaction to Dish's network architecture: "I had this feeling that something was missing. And then it hit me: Where's the switch? For those of you guys that have been around for a while, there was no damn switch. It just felt weird. We were doing all that stuff in the cloud."

Another major difference is that Dish is not using equipment from Sweden's Ericsson and Finland's Nokia, two of the world's three big 5G equipment vendors. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon all rely heavily on equipment from the two vendors for their own 5G networks. "I call it the Scandinavian mafia," Mayo said of Ericsson and Nokia, explaining that Dish's open RAN network is "going to give us as operators a whole lot more control over the features and the functionality."

https://www.lightreading.com/the-core/...d/d-id/772616?_mc=RSS_LR_EDT
 

„Rakuten Group CEO Hiroshi ‘Mickey’ Mikitani further explained that the cellco must control how many subscribers it activates until roaming fees begin to drop. He said these rates would drop in October 2021 and then again in March 2022.“

https://blog.telegeography.com/...luating-much-hyped-mobile-newcomers
 

Rakuten is one of the owners and one of the clients

Connecting the Unconnected

AST SpaceMobile Chairman and CEO Abel Avellan to Participate at Rakuten Optimism 2021

Through strategic partnerships with innovative companies such as Rakuten Mobile, AST SpaceMobile aims to achieve 100% cellular broadband coverage from space.

October 12, 2021 08:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time

MIDLAND, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASTS), the company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by standard mobile phones, today announced its Chairman and CEO, Abel Avellan, will participate at Rakuten Optimism 2021 on October 13 at 9:25 AM JST, or October 12 at 8:25pm EDT. Rakuten Optimism is an annual world-class event where business leaders from around the world share their insights on the latest innovations in tech and digital transformation.

Through strategic partnerships with innovative companies such as Rakuten Mobile, AST SpaceMobile aims to achieve 100% cellular broadband coverage from space. ASTSpaceMobile 5G

The Q&A session, “Connecting the Unconnected: Achieving 100% Coverage from Space,” will be moderated by Nobuyuki Uchida, Executive Officer, Division Manager, Technology, Strategy & Compliance Division, Rakuten Mobile.

AST SpaceMobile is building the first and only global broadband cellular network in space to operate directly with standard, unmodified mobile devices based on our extensive IP and patent portfolio. Our team of engineers and space scientists is on a mission to eliminate the connectivity gaps faced by today's five billion mobile subscribers and finally bring broadband to the billions who remain unconnected

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/...te-at-Rakuten-Optimism-2021  

Mean consensus OUTPERFORM
Number of Analysts 14
Last Close Price 1 108,00 JPY
Average target price 1 533,29 JPY
Spread / Average Target 38,4%

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/...r-of-Wholly-O-36566412/  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31EEcl0QbVo

 

1&1 makes 5(G) in Germany, as operator leans on Rakuten know-how to go one better than Japanese partner.

1&1 Drillisch’s mobile network will be better than Rakuten’s in Japan, according to Rakuten Symphony
CEO and Rakuten Group CTO Tareq Amin.

German MVNO 1&1 is building a greenfield network in the country as it becomes a fully fledged MNO, having acquired spectrum at 2100 MHz, 2600 MHz and 3.5 GHz, where it has a 50 MHz allocation. To do so, it has entered into a deep working partnership with Rakuten Symphony, the company that Rakuten created to package and commercialise its know-how in building Open RAN and cloud–based networks.
Tareq Amin, Rakuten Symphony’s CEO, said that 1&1 would be able to benefit not just from Rakuten’s experience in Open RAN, but what it has learnt in terms of physical deployment and in automated operations. Most important for Amin in terms of challenging telco culture, it can apply the principles of automation and software-driven configuration that Rakuten has developed to design a self-healing, self-organising network.

https://the-mobile-network.com/2021/10/...-to-out-do-partner-rakuten/






 

ROBERT CLARK 9/21/2021

The transition to open RAN is following a well-worn script.

Incumbent on the sidelines – check.

Trash-talking from the industry leaders – check.

Complaints it is too complex and unwieldy – check.

If there's a pattern in the history of the IT industry it is the continual realignment of hardware and software.

It wasn't that long ago that Microsoft was denouncing open source software in general and Linux in particular in the fiercest terms.

Then-CEO Steve Ballmer described Linux as "a cancer that attaches itself" to everything. Today open source is an uncontroversial part of its portfolio.

Open RAN is a very different technology challenge. It's not about doing the same thing with a different process but about rebuilding the radio access with standard open interfaces powered by AI controllers.

The political tensions around it also are different.

The virtualized, modular RAN will be here sooner rather than later and vendors will be tripping over each other as they try to get on board.

https://www.lightreading.com/open-ran/...llowing-script/d/d-id/772195  

Typical trash-talking on order of the leaders of the old industry like Huawei and the Scandinavian Mafia  - but remember former Microsoft-CEO Steve Ballmer, who described Linux as "a cancer that attaches itself", but today Open Source is an uncontroversial part of  near all similar offers.  

5.5 million subcribers.  

For our 61st episode, we're joined by CEO and co-founder Juan de Antonio. Cabify has grown alongside its high-profile peers in ride-hailing by doing things differently and making strategic moves to ensure it remains popular for both investment funds and users, as he tells Mozio's David Litwak and Kevin May of PhocusWire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yRf-XJII-g  

THE NEW GOLDEN ERA OF TELECOM IS ABOUT TO START

CEOs of Rakuten Group and Qualcomm Incorporated discuss how advanced mobile connectivity will change the world.

CRISTIANO AMON, CEO, QUALCOMM INCORPORATED: “THE NEW GOLDEN ERA OF TELECOM IS ABOUT TO START.”

As they discussed how 5G will change the way people lead our lives, the two leaders touched on the implications for video consumption and broadcasting. Noted Amon: 5G will “democratize video” allowing people to have continuous access to HD video streams. 5G will do to video “what 4G did to music,” he explained. “People don’t carry CDs anymore; you can stream anything.”

The technology could also help start-ups and other small businesses to be more competitive. “There’s another capability of 5G that is not being discussed,” Amon said. “It’s going to also help us democratize computing power.” He explained that people who can connect to the cloud will have access to almost unlimited computing power. “We should be thinking about really closing the digital divide, not only of today, but also the digital divide of tomorrow,” he added.

Equipped with better information, individuals and organizations can make better decisions. At the same time, 5G is designed to deliver fingertip remote control over machinery and other equipment. With real-time information and better control, all kinds of economic activity will become more efficient and less wasteful, thereby curbing climate change. Amon noted that when 5G is fully deployed in the U.S. (by 2025), it could reduce emissions by the equivalent of taking 81 million cars off the streets.

https://rakuten.today/blog/rakuten-optimism-gazing-into-5g-future.html
 

 

Wireless networks such as Dish and Rakuten go to the cloud to reduce costs

leonepinker 2 days ago

https://texasnewstoday.com/...go-to-the-cloud-to-reduce-costs/496280/
 

Opensignal announces Japan’s mobile user network experience report

2021-10-14 by rehow

SoftBank Rewins Game Experience and Video Experience Awards
We evaluated the actual experience of multiplayer mobile games and mobile video streaming. Users connecting to SoftBank will enjoy the best experience on both sides. In the game experience, Softbank scored 80.3 out of 100 points and 75.1 in the video experience. These scores reflect the experience of mobile users connecting to all mobile technologies, including both 4G and 5G measurements.

Bridging the gap in voice app experience with Softbank and Rakuten In the previous report, Rakuten received the Voice App Experience Award, but this time it was a joint award between Softbank and Rakuten. The voice app experience quantifies the voice call experience recognized by popular over-the-top communication apps (LINE, WhatsApp, FaceTime, etc.).

Rakuten Wins Upload Speed Experience Award
Rakuten users have an average speed of 13.4 Mbps, which is much faster than other operator users. In contrast, Softbank was 9.6 Mbps and NTT DoCoMo was 9.3 Mbps. Fourth place is au with 8.6 Mbps. Rakuten’s upload speed experience is at least 39.5% faster than all other operators.

NTT DoCoMo Wins Download Speed Experience Award at 52.4Mbps The download speed experience category ranking hasn’t changed since the last Opensignal report. NTT DoCoMo continued to win the award, with au in second place at 46.6 Mbps, Softbank in fourth place at 40.6 Mbps, and Rakuten in fourth place at 24 Mbps.

Au wins 4G utilization award while all operators give very high scores Most 5G connections require the smartphone to stay connected to 4G, so the time the user connects to 4G remains important. 4G utilization reflects the percentage of time a user can connect to 4G or higher. Au received this award with an almost perfect score of 99.6%, which is only slightly higher than Rakuten’s 99%, NTT DoCoMo’s 98.8%, and Softbank’s 98.2%.

https://re-how.net/all/1449085/