Rakuten Group announced a deal to acquire US-based mobile network technology company Altiostar Networks in a deal valuing the company at over USD 1 billion. The acquisition will support the Japanese company's efforts to develop a virtualised platform for rolling out open mobile radio networks.
Rakuten was already an investor in Altiostar and has been working with the company on the roll-out of its mobile network in Japan. Rakuten said Altiostar’s 4G and 5G vRAN products are accelerating the industry’s efforts to move to web-scale cloud-native mobile networks, based on open, automated network elements from multiple vendors.
Altiostar already offers its suite of Open vRAN network functions on the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP), the Japanese operator's wholesale platform for rolling out open RAN mobile networks. Altiostar said the takeover should help it reach a wider market and accelerate the deployment of its technology.
Ashraf Dahod will remain CEO of Altiostar, with the company continuing from its base in Massachusetts. Altiostar is also growing its global operations with the expansion of its Indian R&D centre and UK-based open vRAN engineering lab, as well as opening regional hubs close to its customers. In addition to Rakuten Mobile, Altiostar customers include Airtel in India, Dish in the US and Telefonica.
