Rakuten Mobile and Qualcomm are teaming up to deliver high-performance 5G open RAN gear, which will be deployed in the operator’s network in Japan and become part of Rakuten Symphony’s Symware portfolio.
Rakuten picked Qualcomm to commercialize an O-RAN-compliant 5G radio unit (RU) with Massive MIMO and distributed units (DUs), using Qualcomm’s QRU100 5G RAN platform and X100 5G RAN Accelerator card, respectively
In a blog post Thursday, Qualcomm described how massive MIMO brings benefits of more processing power on a smaller footprint that requires less energy. While it helps expand the reach and capacity of 5G sites, the vendor noted that it’s viewed by many in the industry as “the Achilles heel for open RAN deployments.”
Rakuten and Qualcomm aim to dispel that with high performance, low-power equipment including a massive MIMO unit up to 64T64R. Qualcomm said it will enhance coverage, improve cell-edge data speeds, and increase overall network capacity.
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During a press briefing, Rakuten Symphony’s Sushil Rawat, department manager for RAN Platforms, noted how today there are very limited silicon suppliers for O-RAN radios. Qualcomm for its part has been focused on expanding its infrastructure presence, and in 2020 the chip giant announced additions to its 5G RAN portfolio with RU and DU platforms for open and virtualized deployment scenarios.
Xilinx has been one of the front-runner silicon providers for RUs, he said, while DUs are predominately led by Intel. For Rakuten, hardware accelerators from Intel will be replaced by the X100 from Qualcomm, while Xilinx in radios will be replaced by the QRU100, according to Rawat – although he noted it’s not a one-to-one replacement.
The new units will first be deployed in Rakuten Mobile’s network in Japan be a new addition to enhance Rakuten Symphony’s Symware product portfolio of hardware. Rakuten has been at the forefront of championing open and virtualized network architecture, notably through its deployment of a greenfield 4G LTE build. Rakuten Symphony joined the scene as a new unit in 2021, housing the company’s blueprint and roster of vendor products and services which it is working to package and sell to operators around the globe based on its own virtualized and O-RAN learnings.
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From the Qualcomm partnership Rakuten will have its own branded products, but the reference design will be open for anyone to use, Rawat said.
Chipsets are expected to start sampling in the middle of 2022, with general availability targeted in Q2 of 2023. A finished product ready for commercial deployment would then take around six months, and Rakuten is expecting to have one available for customers by the end of 2023, he said.
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Part of the goal is for units to significantly contribute to overall reductions in total cost of ownership, while making more technologies available for open RAN to be deployed at scale.
“Through this collaboration, our collective aim is to accelerate next generation 5G mobile infrastructure global adoption, and this milestone will help operators meet performance demands at the edge and provide enhanced user experiences,” commented Durga Malladi, SVP and general manager of 5G, Mobile Broadband and Infrastructure at Qualcomm, in a blog post.
It’s another move for Qualcomm to power next-gen infrastructure. Last week Qualcomm announced it was working with HPE on a 5G virtualized Distributed Unit (vDU) and Telefonica recently validated an “all-in-one” 5G standalone small cell using Qualcomm’s FSM100 5G RAN platform.