Tejas and Rakuten target open RAN success in India

　　India's Tejas Networks and Japan's Rakuten Symphony have said they are teaming up to build open RAN products and to explore commercial opportunities worldwide.

　　Under the partnership, Rakuten's central unit (CU) and distributed unit (DU) software, operational support systems (OSS) and portfolio of cloud products will be integrated with Tejas's 4G and 5G radios.

　　"By combining Rakuten Symphony's cloud-native software and orchestration capabilities with Tejas Networks' proven radio technology, we hope to deliver open, flexible and high-performing network solutions that meet the demands of today's rapidly evolving telecom landscape," said Sharad Sriwastawa, Rakuten Symphony's president, in a statement.

　　Tejas, however, denies any licensing component in the deal. "There is no licensing component in this agreement. We will be combining our field-proven 4G/5G radio portfolio with Rakuten Symphony's cloud-native RAN software to develop an interoperable open RAN solution, which will then be marketed to customers worldwide," responded Tejas in response to a query from Light Reading.

　　The partnership comes amid difficulties for open RAN and signs it has failed to meet expectations. After laying off a significant number of employees in India and elsewhere, US-headquartered Mavenir confirmed its withdrawal from the market for open RAN radios earlier this month as it negotiated a debt-for-equity swap with lenders.

　　Open RAN has been a non-starter in India, with none of the top three telcos – Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea – awarding business to open RAN vendors as part of 5G deals. Vodafone Idea's CTO has also raised serious concerns about open RAN, questioning the maturity of the technology as well as its total cost of ownership. After conducting trials, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel decided not to deploy open RAN in their networks.

　　Indian summer

　　But the collaboration between Tejas and Rakuten might create new opportunities for open RAN in India. Part of the consortium led by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tejas is building the government-owned BSNL's 4G network. It received its largest-ever $900 million order from BSNL for RAN in 2023. Earlier, the company said it had set up 100,000 sites for 4G and 5G services as part of this deal. Its relationship with BSNL could lead to a significant open RAN deployment in India.

　　Tejas has also recently bagged a three-year deal with Vodafone Idea for its optical transport products to help the service provider boost backhaul capacity in several  circles (service areas).

　　Over the years, Tejas has emerged as an important part of the government's strategy to promote domestic manufacturing of telecom gear as part of its Atmanirbhar (self-reliance) policy. The company recently received funds of 1.23 billion rupees (US$14.35 million) under India's production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom and networking products.

　　Meanwhile, Rakuten Mobile, the sister company of Rakuten Symphony, operates one of the world's largest open RAN deployments in Japan. Parent company Rakuten Group launched Symphony to sell the homegrown products used by the Japanese telco to operators in other countries. It already has a presence in India through its Global Innovation Lab in Bengaluru.