NTIA and Rakuten Partner Up—Another Chance for U.S. Open RAN Vendors?

In January 2025, Rakuten Mobile announced it will support the commercial deployment of Open Radio Units (O-RUs) developed by U.S.-based vendors. This is a part of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) project to advance Open Radio Access Network (RAN) with funding by the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund. NTIA’s project, which includes Radio Unit (RU) vendors such as Airspan Networks, Eridan Communications, and Microelectronics Technology, will leverage Rakuten Mobile’s expertise in the verification and integration processes required for the commercial deployment of their RUs and support Proofs of Concept (PoCs) in commercial networks. These trials will utilize Rakuten Symphony’s Open RAN-compatible Distributed Units (DUs) and Centralized Units (CUs).

Rakuten Mobile’s expertise comes from having already built a nationwide Open RAN network in Japan, and the company itself has been cultivating multiple Open RAN partnerships over the years, including Ukrainian operator Kyivstar signing an Open RAN network deal with Rakuten in 2024.

The telecommunications market in Japan has typically been one of the earliest adopters of new technologies—with examples being Open RAN and now the new Artificial Intelligence (AI) RAN architecture championed by NVIDIA and SoftBank. Importantly, the incumbent Western RAN vendors such as Nokia and Ericsson are not particularly as dominant across the Open RAN networks in Japan as they are in other markets, with Japan’s own companies, such as NEC and Fujitsu, much more prevalent, especially in the radio. This partnership with the NTIA and Rakuten has a lot of implications:

• First, the U.S. government aims to move its supply chain for its telecommunications industry as much away from Europe as possible and have its own national RAN vendor that it can use on its networks. Growing geopolitical tensions, such as the potential for a global trade war looming, could put the United States into “overdrive” to make sure that it has greater control over its telecommunications infrastructure, which involves controlling the supply chain. Furthermore, a result of these trials and support from Rakuten could promote greater adoption of multi-vendor Open RAN networks in the United States going forward, even if it includes the local vendors in secondary or tertiary supplier roles.
• Rakuten, and perhaps the other Japanese RAN vendors, may have an opportunity to gain some traction in the U.S. market for their RAN solutions. Fujitsu is already a secondary Open RAN supplier to AT&T, alongside Ericsson and Mavenir. With the PoCs promoting U.S. radio vendors, this also offers Rakuten Symphony the opportunity to showcase its CU and DU expertise, and perhaps compete for deals in this space in the future. However, the shift in focus toward enabling a converged infrastructure for AI and telco workloads by operators and the U.S. government could mean that this is more of a niche opportunity.

These developments are not out of the blue. Rumors have swirled for months around Ericsson potentially moving its Headquarters (HQ) to the United States and, given its strong presence and market share within U.S. Mobile Network Operator (MNO) infrastructure, would be beneficial for it in the long run. Nokia also has an HQ in Dallas, which it can use to manufacture hardware and supply to local MNOs, while avoiding any potential tariffs that may or may not be imposed on the European Union (EU).

U.S. radio vendors that will work with Rakuten will gain invaluable expertise when it comes to getting their solutions to become viewed as commercially viable for MNOs in the United States for Open RAN. Open RAN, especially the radio, is going to continue to become a bigger opportunity as MNOs continue adopting the technology, which is why this initiative is being put in place. However, the economics behind becoming an incumbent, or even a challenger, in the radio market are extremely complex due to the high Research & Development (R&D) costs and order fulfillment challenges when not already operating on a large scale.

From a government perspective, besides removing reliance on foreign infrastructure, the United States is also aiming to become a leader in innovation in the telecommunications sector, and the growing technological partnership between Japanese companies such as Rakuten for Open RAN and SoftBank for The Stargate Project reinforces this, as the Japanese technology market has a reputation for pioneering technology developments. Initiatives such as Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) 3 are focused more on software solutions to drive Open RAN adoption. NOFO 3 has two key research areas—utilizing data made available through Open RAN interfaces and other innovations such as the Radio Intelligence Controller (RIC) to improve efficiencies and drive industry value for other industry verticals, and for solutions that reduce the complexity of multi-vendor integration through automation. With the growing importance of the software side of the RAN, this is more of a commercial success than establishing a serious RAN hardware supplier in the short term due to much lower capital necessary to develop viable and innovative solutions. Challengers such as Mavenir have faced many challenges, thus far, in terms of funding and gaining sufficient commercial traction, especially in the RAN domain. However, its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) has reported that despite the rumors surrounding the company, this fiscal year saw its second-best-ever year in terms of bookings, expected to hit at least US$650 million. Open RAN is expected to account for less than 25% of this. Airspan, which is part of the NTIA initiative, filed for Chapter 11 last year and has slowly been rebuilding itself.

While this partnership with Rakuten can bring a lot of value to the local RAN vendors themselves, the NTIA’s ambitions to establish a local RAN vendor that MNOs select for their commercial networks is very ambitious and unlikely to succeed in the short term. Developing enough skill, acquiring sufficient talent, and producing a competitive product portfolio takes a lot of work, money, and time in order to keep up with and catch up to the portfolios of incumbent vendors such as Nokia and Ericsson. The greater opportunity for local RAN vendors is more likely to reside in the deployment of 6G networks, which is expected to arrive sometime in 2030, thus their focus should be on gaining the expertise from Rakuten for verification and PoC processes, and prioritizing their R&D funding for 6G RAN technology. The other aspect to consider is whether incumbent vendors like Ericsson move their HQ to the United States to avoid losing their dominance in a very profitable market for the entire telecommunications industry. If that were to occur, it greatly reduces the necessity for increased funding from the NTIA for smaller local players, as the perceived risk of European reliance is immediately eliminated.