Rakuten’s all-cloud mobile network goes down a storm in Barcelona

FILE PHOTO: A staff holds a smart phone which being tested for Rakuten's under-construction mobile network at its network facility in Tokyo, Japan, February 20, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-hoon/File Photo

BARCELONA: Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten plans to become Japan's fourth mobile operator this year with what its says is the world's first fully cloud-based mobile network, creating a potential template for international expansion.

Rakuten, which started out as a two-man outfit in 1997 and has grown to post annual revenues of US$10bil (RM40.70bil), is already trialling the network with early users as it looks to run mobile services in a scalable, low-cost way.