Tokyo-based Rakuten Mobile, group company of Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, announced today that it plans to acquire Innoeye, an engineering technology solutions company headquartered in Virginia, USA.
Rakuten Mobile has already deployed Innoeye’s converged OSS, an end-to-end platform process automation solution, to support the 4G/5G Cloud platform for its network launch in Japan, according to the firm.
The company also plans to rollout this technology and expertise as part of the new Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP) offering to be made available to telecom companies and other enterprise customers around the world.
Rakuten Communications Platform combines the technology blueprint and playbook of the cloud native mobile network of Rakuten Mobile and its partners to offer telecom companies and enterprises a way to build and deploy fully cloud native network services.
The platform contains all the elements of the Rakuten Mobile network, including telco applications and software from multiple vendors, OSS and BSS systems handling customer billing and activation systems, in addition to edge computing and virtual network management functions.
Rakuten Communications Platform will be made available with an app-store-like interface where customers can tailor the platform to their local requirements.
Fully cloud-native telco networks of the future
“Since we first envisioned the launch of Rakuten Mobile two years ago, we have also planned to bring to market our own expertise and technology stack as a unique service that will enable operators around the world to deploy fully cloud-native telco networks of the future,” said Tareq Amin, representative director, executive vice president and CTO of Rakuten Mobile.
“With the planned Acquisition of Innoeye, we are one step closer to closing the circle in bringing to market a carrier grade telco cloud product that is as simple as click, purchase and deploy,” he added.
Rajeev Gupta, CEO of Innoeye noted that joining hands with Rakuten Mobile will provide the firm with unique ability to contribute towards this large industry movement and create a highly innovative cloud-based communication platform that is open, scalable and highly secure.
“Rakuten Communications Platform will disrupt the industry and pave the way for the next level of innovation. We look forward to being a part of this journey,” Gupta said.
Platform components
The firm explained that the main components of the platform are a RCP Cluster, a central computing hardware solution built for both telco and IT workloads offers full cloud native solution (containerization), as well as RCP Functions.
Those functions are described as open, standardized, scalable software and hardware RAN and core network for a cloud native 5G network.
Another key component is the RCP Automator, a smart unified OSS/BSS with built-in AI operations ready to manage the entire network, service and customer lifecycle of a cloud native network.
RCP Concierge is an integration framework to facilitate secure, reliable and seamless client communication and integration of the customer backend services with RCP.
RCP Marketplace, another main component is an “app-store-like” interface offering an easily accessible menu of latest updated telco technologies and applications from multiple vendors.
