BARCELONA -- MWC19 -- Cisco today announced details of its innovation blueprint with Rakuten Mobile Network, Inc. to build the world’s first end-to-end fully virtualized, cloud-native mobile network, ready for 5G.

Rakuten Mobile Network (RMN), a wholly owned subsidiary of Rakuten, Inc., a global leader in internet services and soon to be operator of Japan’s newest mobile network, announced on February 12 it plans to launch commercial services via its new mobile network in October 2019 with an innovative cloud-native architecture that is fully virtualized from radio access to core, with end-to-end automation for both network operations and services.

The foundation of the new Rakuten Mobile Network architecture and telco-cloud will extensively use Cisco software and services, and routing and switching hardware. Cisco delivered its best-of-breed portfolio spanning technology from its Cloud, IT and Service Provider businesses, as well as engineering, multi-vendor system integration, security and operations expertise from Cisco Customer Experience to deliver in record time what was considered close to impossible less than eight months ago.

Cisco Customer Experience is the primary systems integrator for the 5G-ready cloud-native architecture design and the deployment of RMN’s virtualized telco-cloud.

Key contributions feature the following:

Cisco’s visionary networking model incorporating these technologies will enable RMN to deliver a broad suite of services including consumer mobile, IoT, rich media and low-latency services including augmented and virtual reality.

"Rakuten is taking a cutting-edge approach to mobile networking, modeling a new type of network that is software-powered and automated from top to bottom," said Tareq Amin, chief technology officer, Rakuten Mobile Network. "With this design approach we mapped out with Cisco and a carefully selected vendor ecosystem, we believe we can offer high-value services at more affordable costs, helping our customers to share the true benefits of cloud innovation."

"With the launch of this network faster than any operator has accomplished before, the world sees a shining example of the power of cloud and automation for the future of mobility," said Jonathan Davidson, senior vice president, and general manager, Service Provider Business, Cisco. "Our collaboration from concept to launch shows the breadth of Cisco to support Rakuten in designing a zero touch, fully automated, and software-driven mobile telco cloud that can serve millions of subscribers, and be ready for 5G."

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