Etisalat Group inks partnership with Japan’s Rakuten Mobile

Etisalat Group, one of the world’s leading telecom groups in emerging markets, and Rakuten Mobile, Inc., announced today the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop a reference blueprint for mobile broadband networks and Open RAN technology based on the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP).

“We’re excited to work with Etisalat to build a new generation of telecom infrastructure based on the Rakuten Communications Platform which will bring cost effective mobile services to their customers across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.”

Tareq Amin, Representative Director, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Rakuten Mobile

Under this MoU agreement, the companies aim to jointly develop a reference design for a new generation of mobile networks for Etisalat customers across the Middle East, Africa and Asia regions based on open standards and a cloud-native, software centric and fully virtualized/containerized platform with intelligent and secure operations.

“Etisalat Group and our affiliate networks across the Middle East and Africa bring rich services and experiences to our customers across the region. This is a unique opportunity for Etisalat and Rakuten Mobile to co-explore and further develop next generation mobile networks based on RCP that will allow Etisalat to leverage a cost-effective, cloud-native, Open RAN based mobile network architecture that is secure, scalable and reliable.”

Hatem Bamatraf, Chief Technology Officer, Etisalat International