Rakuten Mobile said it will deploy massive MIMO Open RAN radios from 1Finity at scale across its nationwide 5G network in Japan. The rollout begins this year and targets capacity expansion and coverage improvements within Rakuten Mobile’s fully virtualized, cloud-native Open RAN architecture.
The deployment centers on 1Finity’s passively cooled, O-RAN-compliant massive MIMO radio units built on Qualcomm Technologies Dragonwing QRU100 platforms. Rakuten Mobile plans to use the 32A37 mMIMO O-RU operating in the 3.7 GHz band, interoperating with Rakuten Symphony centralized and distributed units over the O-RAN open fronthaul. The new radios will complement existing 1Finity 44R21 Open RAN radios already providing wide-area coverage.
Massive MIMO plays a central role in high-traffic and coverage-constrained parts of the network, using advanced beamforming and spatial multiplexing to increase capacity and reduce energy per bit compared with traditional 4T4R radios. Rakuten Mobile said the energy efficiency and low power consumption of the platform support its sustainability goals while enabling continued expansion of Sub-6 GHz 5G services.
- Deployment at scale of 1Finity massive MIMO Open RAN radios starting this year
- 32A37 mMIMO O-RU operating at 3.7 GHz with O-RAN open fronthaul interoperability
- Built on Qualcomm Dragonwing QRU100 platforms
- Passively cooled design focused on energy efficiency and reliability
- Complements existing 44R21 Open RAN radios in Rakuten Mobile’s network
“The low power consumption and high performance of the 1Finity radio platform is well-suited to help us achieve our sustainable connectivity vision,” said Sudhakar Pandey, Head of Rakuten Mobile’s RAN department.
🌐 Analysis
Rakuten Mobile continues to position itself as a large-scale proof point for Open RAN, moving beyond coverage builds toward capacity-intensive massive MIMO deployments that have traditionally favored proprietary RAN platforms. For 1Finity and Qualcomm, the announcement highlights growing commercial momentum for O-RAN-compliant massive MIMO, an area where ecosystem maturity and energy efficiency have been key adoption barriers.
