拥有网络：为什么主权是电信的下一个前沿

Balancing Control, SHARADSRIWASTAWA Co-CEO, Rakuten MobilePresident, Rakuten Symphony OWNING THENETWORK: WHYSOVEREIGNTY ISTHE NEXT FRONTIERFOR TELECOMS mobile network. He was appointed to his currentpositions in 2023. Sharad has held global executiveroles in India, the Middle East, Australia, the US,and Asia, working with major mobile operatorsand vendors including Reliance, T-Mobile, Telstra, Sharad Sriwastawa serves as co-Chief ExecutiveOfficer and Chief Technology Officer of RakutenMobile and President of Rakuten Symphony, aRakuten Group company spearheading the globaladoption of open, cloud-native platforms. Sharad Can you briefly explain Open RAN andhow Rakuten Mobile built its network? Sharad:In 2018, we could have followedthe traditional telecom path, selected anincumbent vendor, and built the networkthe traditional way. We chose a very We built the Rakuten Mobile network onfour pillars. First, complete disaggregationof hardware and software, using off theshelf commodity servers, rather thanproprietary equipment. Second, fullvirtualization and cloudification of everyworkload, not just the RAN but also the Sharad SriwastawaCo-CEO at Rakuten Mobile |President at RakutenSymphony Open RAN, as we define it, goes beyondsimply virtualizing software. It is aboutfully disaggregating the hardware andsoftware stack and moving away from blackbox systems toward a software definedarchitecture. That shift gave us far greater In 2018, we couldhave followed thetraditional telecompath, selected anincumbent vendor, What does network sovereignty Sharad:Network sovereigntymeans you own the infrastructure;you control what runs inside yournetwork; and you control your Network sovereigntymeans you own theinfrastructure; you At its core, network sovereigntyis the end of permission operators had to wait for vendor release cycles to introduce new capabilities.Sovereignty means you control your own destiny. You are not just operating We also see governments shifting their focus from data sovereignty toinfrastructure and software sovereignty. In parallel, geopolitical pressuresare pushing many governments to impose restrictions on, or mandate the Is Open RAN a technology choice, or a Sharad:It is both. Open RAN makessovereignty economically viable andoperationally affordable. You cantalk about sovereignty, but if it is tooexpensive, operators will not pursue it,especially given the pressure on ARPU "OpenRAN makessovereigntyeconomicallyviable andoperationally Open RAN provides a path to sovereigntythat operators can actually afford. Itallows them to control their destiny What is your view on fragility vis-à-vis open and closed Sharad:Fragility in a network comes from two things: singlepoints of failure, and the inability to respond quickly when Open RAN addresses both. Because hardware and softwareare decoupled, you can change the hardware componentrelatively easily if there is geopolitical disruption or a security In a vendor lock-in system, if something goes wrong withyour sole supplier, it is extremely difficult to exit. The closed Rakuten is one of very few organizations that have builta fully cloud-native network at scale. What has that Sharad:The two concepts, Open RAN and cloud native, arerelated but should be considered separately. Each contributessomething distinct to the sovereignty question. Open RAN isfundamentally about disaggregation. Cloud native – meaning The case for cloud native rests on three things. First, thespeed and ease of change. In traditional telecoms, engineersstill work maintenance windows through the night to pushupdates. If you look at how OTT providers manage their ITworkloads, change requests are serviced during the day withno downtime, because the architecture supports self-healing.Second, operational convenience flows directly from that. What are the broader implications of Rakuten’s approach for operators Sharad:Open RAN is gaining real traction this year. We have more than tenproof-of-concept deployments running right now, and expect four or fiveof those to go to scale in 2026 and 2027. Our network buildout with 1&1in Germany is the first fully virtualized mobile network based on Open RAN The technology is no longer in question. Concerns around massive MIMO[multiple-input multiple-output], power efficiency, and scalability have been Going forward, any greenfield operator will choose Open RAN. Thearchitecture gives them the flexibility to migrate from 4G to 5G to 6G without OUR NETWORKBUILDOUT WITH 1&1 INGERMANY IS THE FIRSTFULLY VIRTUALIZEDMOBILE NETWORKBASED ON OPENRAN STANDARDS INEUROPE, AND IT ISGROWING WELL How do you see AI reshaping telecoms, and does it introduce newsovereignty dependencies? Sharad:In telecoms, there are two distinct dimensions to consider. The first isusing AI for network operations. The second is AI-native products, which arestill thin on the ground. In BSS [business support systems] and OSS [operationssupport systems], things are be