Rakuten rises as a serious contender in open RAN, to acquire Altiostar for USD 1 billion

Summary

Rakuten's move to acquire Open RAN software vendor Altiostar for roughly USD 1 billion marks a new phase in the Japanese conglomerate's ambitions beyond its own greenfield mobile network. Having built a fully virtualised commercial mobile network, Rakuten is now positioning itself as a full-stack technology supplier to other telecom operators through its Rakuten Communications Platform.

Rakuten assembled its platform from a multi-vendor ecosystem spanning core networking, service orchestration, IMS and RCS, and radio access network software, and the creation of a new business unit, Symphony, signals a shift toward a more vertically integrated technology stack. The strategic logic behind bringing virtualised radio access network software in-house, rather than continuing to rely solely on outside Open RAN partners, follows from that same shift.

Beyond the deal itself, growing vendor consolidation raises questions for the broader promise of Open RAN as an open, multi-vendor alternative to traditional radio network architecture, and the tension between platform-driven integration and genuine vendor choice could shape the pace of adoption across the telecom equipment market over the next decade.

As open RAN scales, will the market still deliver on its founding promise of vendor choice, or will it consolidate around a handful of integrated platforms?