If Japan saw the premiere, then Europe is about to see a whole tour. The latest briefing call with Rakuten Symphony contained a characteristic mix of significant achievements, transparency, vision, just a dash of contrariness – and a few teasers ahead of MWC. On achievements, Rakuten Symphony’s own 4G, open RAN network now reaches 96% of Japan’s population. Important enough milestone, but in the context of achieving that in just 2 years (and four years ahead of the original schedule) it remains all the more impressive. Rakuten Mobile now has 200,000 open RAN cells are on air, a mix of 4G and 5G, indoor and outdoor; dense urban, suburban and rural. This includes 5G Massive MIMO, based on Open RAN. Courtesy of Rakuten Symphony Although it’s in the small print, Amin draws attention to the list of vendors supporting this deployment: Nokia, KMW, Airspan Altiostar, Sercomm, Qualcomm and NEC. That variety is as much a validation of open RAN as anything else in today’s call. Subscriber numbers are up, now approaching 5.4 million, with the proportion on the legacy Rakuten Mobile MVNO network down to a few hundred thousand. And Rakuten wants those data-hungry subscribers, attracted by its Unlimited plans. […]