SAN JOSE, Calif., and TOKYO – Cisco today announced another milestone in its innovative engagement with Rakuten Mobile, Inc. (hereinafter “Rakuten Mobile”) with the successful launch of an inter-network roaming service between Rakuten Mobile and KDDI mobile networks across Japan.

The LTE roaming service, defined by 3GPP and based on the S10 signaling interface standard, is being used within Cisco’s Virtual Ultra Packet Core to connect to mobility management entities (MMEs) between Rakuten Mobile and KDDI. The MMEs track relevant user data sessions to ensure smooth handover from one operator’s network to the next. The data path will be managed by connecting the KDDI network with Cisco’s System Architecture Evolution Gateway VNF supporting a Control and User Plane Separation architecture.

Using this new technology, Rakuten Mobile can vastly improve the service experience for its customers by enabling service continuity for data and voice when moving between the networks. With improved service continuity, Rakuten Mobile can offer a superior, uninterrupted mobile broadband connection for increasing mobile video and app use, browsing experiences, gaming and more.

Cisco