Audit Report.

OpenRAN Network Japan in

international comparison 2022

Foreword
Open RAN (Radio Access Network) is one of the hottest topics
and technology trends in the telecommunications industry.
Some industry analysts have called Open RAN the future of
wireless network architecture, while umlaut expects Open
RAN to become the standard. The idea behind the concept
is a strong emphasis on software-based development and
feature implementation in wireless network deployments,
with focus on 5G networks.
The use of off-the-shelf vs. proprietary hardware is a new
concept and a central part of the Open RAN discussion. The
“disaggregation” or “decoupling” of network software and
hardware is at the core of Open RAN deployment: looking
at Radio Units (RU), Distributed Units (DU), and Centralized
Units (CU).
The benefits of the Open RAN approach are clear: network
operators are always looking at driving innovation, finding
strategic ways to drive down deployment costs, improve
network performance, and accelerate speed to market on
network deployments and new solutions for customers. It is
much easier to achieve these goals focusing on software–
2 3
writing lines of code versus the challenges of designing,
manufacturing and shipping hardware, at scale. Fostering a
multi-vendor ecosystem is another clear benefit for mobile
network operators.
As adoption of cloud and virtualized RAN technologies
accelerate, mobile operators have a great opportunity to
drive down costs and improve performance leveraging the
benefits of Open RAN.
First movers on the Open Ran technology claim savings
of up to 30% in the radio network investment and expect
savings in the same order of magnitude for the operational
expenditures of such networks.
Key Trends in Open RAN
Momentum certainly appears to be increasing.
At the 2022 Mobile World Congress connectivity event from
February 28 – March 3 in Barcelona, Spain, there were 46
demos of Open RAN by several industry players live, with
another 24 available online at the O-RAN Alliance Virtual
Exhibition. Open RAN was clearly one of the main themes
and stories coming out of the event. These demos, combined
with the numerous Open RAN and 5G-related announce-
ments by industry leaders, suggest the industry is moving
past the conceptual phase of Open RAN adoption, and into
the commercialization and deployment phases.
Rakuten Symphony continues to be aggressive in its support
and development of the Open RAN ecosystem globally. In
addition to launching the world’s first fully-virtualized, software-
driven mobile network in Japan which, 4 years ahead of
schedule, already serves 96% of the Japanese population,
Rakuten Symphony also launched Symworld, the world’s first
industrialized automation platform for service providers. At
MWC 2022, the company announced the acquisition of Robin.
io, to complete it’s full stack portfolio. Robin.io produces cloud
software for enterprises and telcos focused on Kubernetes-
based cloud-native app containerization, management, and
orchestration. Rakuten uses 4G and 5G Open RAN software
umlaut report
solutions coming from previously acquired Altiostar, working
with more than five different radio suppliers. The end result
is accelerated deployment of software-centric, virtualized
services for network operators at an up to 40% lower capex
and up to 30% lower opex price point. Rakuten Symphony
CEO Tareq Amin told LightReading that his goal is for 25%
of the global RAN market share to be captured through
Rakuten Symphony.
Being at the center of innovation for its global client base,
umlaut is working with clients across the globe as part of its
continuing focus on providing engineering, consulting and
testing/validation solutions to over 200 networks in more
than 120 countries. This audit report provides a compelling
and detailed look into Rakuten’s Open RAN network, and
how its performance compares to networks across the globe.
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Score comparison — Overall Methodology

Selected international cities

Total Score
1000 Dots
Worldwide Rakuten Mobile is one of the first large scale ad- Berlin, Johannesburg, London, Mexico City, Milan, New York,
952 959 949 944 951 956 opters of OpenRAN. In April 2020, Rakuten Mobile launched Riyadh, Rome, Sao Paulo, Seattle, Sydney and Zurich.
945 925 934 942 937 928
921 930 926
889 892 898 full-scale commercial service on the world's first Open-
874 869 873
RAN network. In our analysis we compared the OpenRAN For a fair comparison we selected the lowest and highest
783 801
755 network of the 10-million-inhabitant metropolis of Tokyo achieved score of the mobile networks in each city to directly
730
703 with the network performance of other cosmopolitan ci- compare it with the Rakuten Mobile OpenRAN network in Tokyo.
660
ties allover the world. We used our proven methodology (*) results for OpenRAN infrastructure of Rakuten Mobile's mobile
to calculate the umlaut score for the networks in Atlanta, network excluding Roaming

• Coverage — Where is the mobile network max. 1000 pt

available? Mobile Crowd Score

Crowd
• Speed — How many speed samples are good for
overall

Coverage

Latency
supporting popular services like basic internet,

Speed
Cities Tokyo Atlanta Berlin Johannes- London Mexico Milan New Riyadh Rome São Seattle Sydney Zürich HD Video and UHD Video?
burg City York Paulo

Rakuten Mobile network highest score / operator lowest score / operator • Latency — How many of the latency executed on
users handsets are good enough for OTT voice
services and Gaming? User Experience Test (UET)
100%
Score achieved by networks under test per city. We compared the performance of the Rakuten Mobile network in Tokyo with
the performance of the best operator in the selected cities and with the operator with the lowest score.

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Score comparison — Coverage Score comparison — Speed

Selected international cities Selected international cities

Total Score Total Score

500 Dots 300 Dots
498 499 494 497 499 498
495 485 494 487 491 487 490
492 481 479 494 475 473
460 459 466 274 277 274
453 452 269 270 273 271
265 267
440 258 261 261 259
250 249 253 246 248
396 239 243 239
232
214
205 209
198
193
303

Coverage Speed

Cities Tokyo Atlanta Berlin Johannes- London Mexico Milan New Riyadh Rome São Seattle Sydney Zürich Cities Tokyo Atlanta Berlin Johannes- London Mexico Milan New Riyadh Rome São Seattle Sydney Zürich
burg City York Paulo burg City York Paulo

Rakuten Mobile network highest score / operator lowest score / operator Rakuten Mobile network highest score / operator lowest score / operator

Score achieved by networks under test per city. In the category “Coverage” we compared the umlaut score achieved by Score achieved by networks under test per city. In the category “Speed” we compared the umlaut score achieved by the
the Rakuten Mobile network in Tokyo with the performance of the best operator in the selected cities and with the operator Rakuten Mobile network in Tokyo with the performance of the best operator in the selected cities and with the operator with
with the lowest score. the lowest score.

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Score comparison — Latency

Selected international cities

Total Score
200 Dots

196
191 192 189 192
187 186 187 187 193
187 185 185 188
174 172 172 175
167 164 167

147

132

85 84

51

Latency
21

Cities Tokyo Atlanta Berlin Johannes- London Mexico Milan New Riyadh Rome São Seattle Sydney Zürich
burg City York Paulo

Rakuten Mobile network highest score / operator lowest score / operator

Score achieved by networks under test per city. In the category “Latency” we compared the umlaut score achieved by the
Rakuten Mobile network in Tokyo with the performance of the best operator in the selected cities and with the operator with
the lowest score.

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umlaut report umlaut report

Nationwide Score comparison

Nationwide Rakuten Mobile network in global comparison

1000 outstanding

900 very good

800 good
The leader in mobile benchmarking, umlaut, has analyzed
700
satisfactory the Rakuten Mobile network in Japan with regards to mobile
600 network performance. umlaut used it’s unique methodology
sufficient
500 – the umlaut score – to show, how the new OpenRAN network
400 of Rakuten Mobile performs in comparison to other mobile
networks in Japan and all over the world.
300
Today, more than 200 mobile networks in more than 120
200
countries are being evaluated by our unique scoring metho- After launching the world’s first OpenRAN network for full-scale
100 dology. It allows a technical analysis that is unprecedented commercial service in April 2020, Rakuten Mobile achieved
0 in its level of detail and enables comparisons between the a score of 920 in the umlaut 2021 audit report of the first
network performance and capability of each mobile network. OpenRAN Network Japan in international comparison. The
umlaut Score Rakuten Mobile Tokyo, Japan umlaut Scores of operators published in 2021/2022
Our public benchmarks as well as the certificate benchmarks umlaut 2022 comparison shows good improvements from
help network operators to demonstrate how well they are Rakuten Mobile moving from 920 to 945 dots out of 1,000.
Overview umlaut Score 2021/2022 for operators worldwide based on published data by umlaut. The OpenRAN network of delivering wireless connections to consumers, business users (*) results for OpenRAN infrastructure of Rakuten Mobile's mobile
Rakuten Mobile Tokyo, Japan shows a very good performance with 945 points (not including national roaming). and enterprises and reveals the areas of improvement. network excluding Roaming

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Conclusion
The first OpenRAN mobile
network of Rakuten Mobile in
Japan achieves an umlaut Score
of 945 dots out of 1000, which is
"very good".
In Tokyo, Rakuten Mobile shows
competitive performance with
the leading operators in all tested
cities.
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umlaut report
In the speed category and in
coverage Rakuten Mobile is
competitive with the leading
operators in all tested cities.
In latency, the Rakuten Mobile
network shows room for impro-
vements compared to leading
operators in all tested cities.
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umlaut SE
Am Kraftversorgungsturm 3 · 52070 Aachen · Germany

Hakan Ekmen · Chief Executive Officer Telecommunication

cell +49 151 571 33 235 · hakan.ekmen@umlaut.com

www.umlaut.com