Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket

Best Overall: Upwork
Best for Cashback: Rakuten
Best for Surveys: Survey Junkie
Best for Car Owners: Uber
Best for Selling Old Goods: OfferUp
Best for Odd Jobs: Swagbucks

BEST FOR CASHBACK: Rakuten

Offering numerous cashback options for online and in-store purchases, Rakuten delivers a seamless process with rewarding sign-up and referral incentives.

Pros
• Up to 40% cashback on purchases at thousands of qualifying retailers
• $10 welcome bonus for spending $25
• $20 bonus for referring new users who spend at least $20
• Browser extension offers additional perks and features

Cons
• Cashback rates as low as 1%
• Users have reported app freezing issues
• Must accrue $5 in cashback to redeem
• Payouts occur every three months

Previously known as Ebates, Rakuten is the top money-making app for cashback, offering deals across numerous retailers along with inviting sign-up and referral incentives. Although you have to spend money to make money, the app lets you get a little cash back for purchases you'd be making anyway.

After registering, users can browse cashback offers at thousands of retailers, including Target, Best Buy, and Kohl's. To receive cashback, simply click into a retailer from the app or website and place an order. You can also receive cashback for in-store purchases by selecting the offer in the app and linking your card prior to purchasing. However, you can’t receive cashback without first taking these steps.

Cashback rates vary by retailer, ranging from 1% to 40%. You can browse available cashback deals by store, brand, and category directly through the app.

New users can qualify for a $10 welcome bonus after spending $25. You can also receive a $20 referral bonus for introducing new users who spend $20.

Users receive payment through PayPal or a check every three months. To qualify for a payout, you must accrue at least $5 in cashback.

This money-making app also helps computer users save money. The cashback button automatically applies all applicable coupons, saving you the trouble of comparing coupons. It also displays cashback potential in Google search results and notifications about cheaper pricing available at other retailers.

Available on:
iOS: 4.6 stars
Google: 4.1 stars

https://www.investopedia.com/best-money-making-apps-5115140  

BlueVine Review 2021
Online Business Banking With Tons of Features

Kevin MercadanteFebruary 25, 2021

A growing number of online banking platforms are dedicated to small businesses. They tend to offer business checking at low or no fees and have a heavy emphasis on mobile banking for speed and efficiency.

BlueVine takes that basic concept and adds even more features, including paper checks, the ability to earn high interest on your checking account balance, accepting cash deposits, and even small business financing. BlueVine should be near the top of your list if you're a small business owner looking for a new banking relationship.

BlueVine offers plenty of features not available in most online business checking accounts, including the ability to accept cash, invoice customers within the banking platform and take advantage of multiple payment options. This is truly one of the better online business banking services available.

What Is BlueVine Capital?

BlueVine has rapidly developed into one of the most advanced online business banking platforms in the entire industry. Though they offer only one type of bank account — BlueVine Business Checking — it pays high interest on account balances, making it a checking account and high-yield savings account in one.

Today the company has more than 200,000 customers and has provided small business financing in excess of $9 billion.

BlueVine is available in all 50 states for small business owners engaged in just about any type of industry. The only exceptions are adult entertainment, gambling, illegal substances, and weapons, and firearms.

The bank has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, the highest on a scale of A+ to F and has been accredited by the agency since 2014.

https://investorjunkie.com/reviews/bluevine/  

23 new jobs offered

https://sg.indeed.com/Rakuten-Mobile-jobs-in-Singapore  

with a licensend MNO or parts of a Communication Network – and „brownies“ can it too

To deploy an open RAN at scale in an MNO’s primary network is a difficult and high-risk migration at this early stage in the life of O-RAN, as outlined above. But in a greenfield network, it can be a way for an operator to adopt a radical new approach to service delivery and cost, from day one. This will apply to secondary networks implemented by MNOs, for instance for cities or enterprises; to new types of deployers such as neutral hosts; and to that rare but exciting breed, the brand new licensed MNO.

https://rethinkresearch.biz/articles/...choose-smaller-o-ran-vendors/
 

nach meiner Beurteilung.

https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000123468458/...ngigkeit-von-huawei  

Preliminary 2020 1&1 Drillisch AG Earnings Call Feb 16, 2021 (Thomson StreetEvents) -- Edited Transcript of 1&1 Drillisch AG earnings conference call or presentation Monday, February 15, 2021 at 3:00:00pm GMT TEXT version of Transcript

On the next page, you see a very, very rough overview of the architecture that we're planning. On the left-hand side, you see the traditional architecture for mobile networks. And on the right-hand side, you see the Open RAN that we're planning. The advantage of Open RAN is that we can use -- we can make use of different vendors. They are standardized interfaces which are compatible. You can see this in this graphic -- in this diagram. You see 2 different colors. These antenna aren't very entirely intelligent, so there is no -- well, there is no big switch board next to them as it were, but the antenna hooks up to so-called Edge data centers and only in this Edge data center will the -- can the signals be calculated into IP signal. This is done using standard hardware. And then we've got Far Edge data centers and Edge Data centers depending on how far they are away from the antenna. And then at the center of the network, figuratively, we've got the core system. As you can see, as I just mentioned, we're using standard computers. This is cheaper in purchasing an acquisition, also in maintenance. The applications are virtualized on the different computers and can be used in different places on a different computers. And due to this, and thanks to this interoperability, we're also hoping for an Edge innovation because then we can enter some and put some specialized knowledge into this network.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...-earnings-conference-150000309.html  

bzw. ist es schon so weit gewesen, ohne dass das publiziert wurde - denn ich geht davon aus, dass vor dem Ablauf der 1-Jahr-Frei-Regelung am 9. April da nichts mehr publiziert wird.  

"Rakuten Mobile UN-LIMIT Applications Surpass 4 Million"  

Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO continues to uplift Japan’s designers at 2021 Autumn/Winter shows

3 days ago

Rakuten has been growing its fashion footprint consistently in recent years. Back in August 2019, Rakuten partnered with the Japan Fashion Week Organization to become the headline sponsor for TOKYO Fashion Week, renaming the event to Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO, and acting as the event’s title sponsor ever since. In addition, the company launched the “by R” project to support Japanese fashion brands and designers in September 2020.

Since launching its Rakuten Fashion strategy in 2019 — aimed at promoting Japan’s fashion scene globally — Rakuten has continued to facilitate cultural exchange within the global fashion industry by empowering apparel designers, whether up-and-coming or well-known.

Through the “by R” project, Rakuten supported the 2021 A/W season fashion show for two brands — “beautiful people” and “UNDERCOVER” — in events on March 15 and March 19 respectively.

On his feelings regarding this season’s show, UNDERCOVER founder and designer Jun Takahashi commented, “Since we are holding the show in Tokyo, we want to convey the fun and power of a ‘live’ show.”

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, many of this seasons’ shows were held without a live audience and featured streaming sessions online in place of the in-person experience that were common during pre-pandemic times.

Beautiful people designer Hidenori Kumakiri also commented on his expectations. “Through ‘by R,’ during Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO 2021 A/W, we hope people will fully enjoy the spectacle and otherworldliness of fashion.

While this season came with the added wrinkle of having to creatively showcase fashion in the middle of a pandemic, it also followed through in proving that there is certainly no shortage of talented designers who are fully capable of representing Japan in the global fashion world.

Rakuten’s fashion initiatives will continue to uplift local designers in upcoming seasons, in the hopes of broadening their horizons and supporting their aspirations.

https://rakuten.today/blog/...shion-week-tokyo-uplifts-designers.html  

Upcoming IPOs 2021: The 14 Most Anticipated Deals this Year and Beyond

What are the most anticipated upcoming IPOs for 2021? What private companies are investors most excited to own?

2020 ended with a bang as Doordash and Airbnb each doubled on their trading debuts.

Following the coattails of 2020, 2021 could see several highly anticipated IPOs come to market — from grocery delivery to dating, video gaming, mobile finance, and electric vehicles.

Acorns IPO

Acorns * is a “financial everything” technology app that popularized micro-investing, a strategy that involves frequent small investments. Its primary draw is the ability to ’round up’ spending amounts and invest dollar fractions into ETFs.

For example, if you spend $2.40 on a coffee, the app automatically invests $0.60 into a pre-determined portfolio of passive index ETFs. It’s also added a checking account, making it simple to manage spending and investing in one place.

It charges a low flat fee per month.

Acorns has partnered with CNBC to deliver educational features to promote financial wellness. The partnership offers inspiring stories and expert advice on fundamental personal finance and investing topics. Giving this relationship, Acorns is an upcoming IPO that may receive more TV coverage than other IPOs.

https://accessipos.com/upcoming-ipos/
 

Rakuten has invested in Acorns

Acorns’ Walter Cruttenden sows the seeds of micro-investing
October 6, 2016

In April, meanwhile, the Rakuten FinTech Fund joined PayPal and other groups injecting a total of over $35 million in venture funding into Acorns, raising the startup’s total funding to over $62 million.

https://rakuten.today/blog/...en-sees-oaks-money-micro-investing.html

Backed by world-class investors, board members and advisors
including two Nobel Prize winning economists.

PayPal
Investor

Bain Capital
Investor

BlackRock
Investor

DST Global
Investor

NBCUniversal
Investor

Comcast Ventures
Investor

Capital Group
Investor

Greycroft
Investor

eVentures
Investor

TPG
Investor

Rakuten
Investor

Sound Ventures
Investor

https://www.acorns.com/about/  

In Europa experimentieren Telefonica und Vodafone aktiv mit Open RAN. Anfang des Jahres verpflichteten sich die beiden Betreiber zusammen mit der Deutschen Telekom und Orange, bei der Implementierung und Einführung von open RAN zusammenzuarbeiten und unterzeichneten eine Absichtserklärung, um sicherzustellen, dass die Technologie so wettbewerbsfähig ist wie herkömmliche RAN-Produkte.

Unterdessen exportiert die japanische Rakuten Mobile ihre virtualisierte Cloud native Networking-Erfahrung über ihre Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP)-Produkte an internationale Betreiber, zu denen ein Portfolio von Anbietern gehört, die mit Herstellern wie Altiostar, Airspan, Mavenir und Nokia zusammenarbeiten. Im Rahmen der Partnerschaft öffnete Nokia seine Remote-RF-Head-Schnittstelle zu Altiostar.

In den Vereinigten Staaten plant Dish Network den Aufbau eines cloud-nativen 5G-Netzwerks mit einer offenen Architektur. Verizon sagte, dass es aktiv Open RAN-Technologie erforscht und vRAN fördert, und dass es offene Schnittstellen in sein Netzwerk eingeführt hat.

Die Dell'Oro Group prognostizierte im vergangenen Monat, dass der weltweite Umsatz von Open RAN in den nächsten sechs Jahren voraussichtlich zweistellig wachsen wird, wobei die kumulativen Investitionen von Open RAN (einschließlich Hardware, Software und Firmware, ohne Services) im Prognosezeitraum 2020-2025 voraussichtlich 10 Milliarden US-Dollar erreichen werden.

Stefan Pongratz, Vice President und Analyst bei Dell'Oro Group, sagte: "Die allgemeine Einstellung zu Open RAN hat sich in den letzten sechs Monaten deutlich verändert. Die Frage ist nicht mehr, ob Open RAN passieren wird, sondern mehr über den Zeitpunkt und den Umfang der Ankunft von Open RAN. "

https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/2021-04-04/doc-ikmyaawa6189362.shtml  

2021-04-04 by rehow

In recent years, with increasing attention to U.S. stock investment, Rakuten Securities significantly expanded the time to accept orders for U.S. stocks in February 2020, and at the end of April 2020, the U.S. trading app “iSPEED (R)” for smartphones. We have been working to expand our US stock trading services, such as adding a stock trading function and launching an app that allows you to trade domestic stocks and US stocks on a single screen for the first time on major online securities companies. As a result, Rakuten Securities’ “US Equity” service in 2020 is growing rapidly, with the number of contracts being 11 times that of the previous year and the number of customers trading being 5 times that of the previous year.

By supporting the sweep function of the “Money Bridge” of US stock trading, which has been requested more and more, the deposit and withdrawal procedure is no longer required, and the environment where US stocks can be traded more smoothly than ever before is created. It’s ready. In addition to this support, the time zone of the Japanese yen / US dollar exchange service “real-time exchange trading” in the securities account has been greatly expanded, and exchange is possible at any time between 8:00 am and 6:00 am the next morning. I did. We will continue to improve the trading environment for US equities in order to meet the needs of our customers.

The two companies have developed collaborative services that leverage the strengths of the Rakuten Ecosystem (economic zone), including Money Bridge, and Rakuten Securities will open 5 million accounts in December 2020, up 35% year-on-year. , Rakuten Bank is expanding its customer base, with the number of domestic Internet banks surpassing 10 million accounts for the first time in January 2021. The services of both companies, which can complete online transactions, can be used anywhere, so many customers will continue to use them even when refraining from going out to prevent the spread of new coronavirus infections and in new lifestyles. It has received. Rakuten Securities and Rakuten Bank will provide high-value-added services to more customers that conventional Internet banks and Internet securities do not have by linking services that leverage the strengths of the Rakuten Group.

https://re-how.net/all/1023423/  

Deepti Sri · 2 Mar 2021 · 2 min read

Carousell ties up with Supahands to enhance its search function

Under the agreement, Carousell will work with Supahands to evaluate search relevance algorithms for its machine learning models. This will improve the classifieds firm’s search and recommendation functions on its platform, the company said in a statement.

Launched in 2012, Carousell’s platform offers products across categories, including cars, lifestyle, gadgets, and fashion accessories. It operates in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

The move comes amid an acceleration in ecommerce adoption during the Covid-19 pandemic, with shoppers moving online and technology firms supporting their local communities.

Earlier in September 2020, Carousell raised US$80 million in a funding round from a consortium led by South Korea’s Naver Corporation, bringing the company’s valuation at over US$900 million.

The partnership will also leverage strong growth in the online classifieds market, which is poised to hit US$463 billion by 2023.

https://www.techinasia.com/...es-up-supahands-enhance-search-function  

London, 1 February 2021– ZEN (zen.com), a licenced European Fintech company, has announced its launch in 32 markets, including the UK, with the support of Currencycloud, a leading provider of B2B embedded cross-border solutions. ZEN’s goal is to revolutionize digital payments and drive the future of commerce in order to simplify the online experience for both merchants and consumers.

Technology and the pandemic have combined to deliver rapid growth of eCommerce – in the UK 80% of active shoppers are online shoppers 1 , making it the third most advanced online trade market globally. There were 85,000 new online businesses launched only during the first lockdown in Spring 20202 . Such a huge digital shift requires adequate tools to manage both consumers’ and sellers’ expectations in the new-normal era.

ZEN and Currencycloud identified that in order to offer ZEN’s customers the most flexibility possible and add the most value to their shopping experience, it was necessary to take advantage of the entire Currencycloud suite of products and services. Thanks to this cooperation, businesses using ZEN have the ability to create accounts for their customers that allow them to pay, collect and hold 35 currencies, as well as provide settlement solutions for customers using other PSPs.

Nick Cheetham, Chief Revenue Officer at Currencycloud, commented: “We have worked closely with ZEN to ensure they had the right services in place to successfully launch to both businesses and consumers.

Currencycloud Spark, our multi-currency e-wallet solution, fitted perfectly with ZEN’s broader offer, and we look forward to watching them grow in the coming months and years ahead.”

https://www.currencycloud.com/company/news/item/...uds-fx-technology/  

20 hours ago

To break into a well-established market, you need to break with convention.
In Japan, Rakuten Mobile is doing exactly that by systematically embracing automation: Software performs many of the day-to-day tasks completed by human beings in a traditional telecoms operator.
On this path, with the final objective of building a truly autonomous cellular network, Rakuten Mobile has developed a framework to enable employees across the organization to automate as many processes as possible.

The rationale? Automation cuts costs, meaning better prices for end-users. Even better, automation can equate to faster processes, secured access controls, smoother upgrades and fewer errors, resulting in a better customer experience. “When we have some trouble in the network, the first thing we ask is, was this not automated?” says Ashish Madan, system integration specialist, Rakuten Mobile Singapore. “And you have to do it end-to-end. The moment something breaks somewhere and you have to let the human in, that is the failure point.”

Indeed, automation allows employees to focus on rewarding work, rather than handling repetitive tasks. This approach has enabled Rakuten’s e-commerce platform and other cloud-native businesses to grow rapidly.

https://rakuten.today/blog/mobile-tech-explained-automation.html
 

Rakuten Mobile on 5G transformation: ‘Writing code to address automation is a critical thing’

By Sean Kinney, Editor in Chief on FEBRUARY 26, 2021

In conversation with Rakuten Group CTO Tareq Amin

Q: In describing your vision for network automation, you’ve used the analogy of Level 4 autonomous driving for vehicles. Could you give an overview of to what degree your network operations are currently benefiting from automation and describe how you get from where you are today to this future Level 4 degree of network autonomy?

A: When we looked at building Rakuten Mobile network with a fully-virtualized architecture, we also thought that we had a remarkable opportunity to transform the foundation of what we call our data pipeline. In that context, legacy systems such as operations subsystems, orchestration and many others, we had a great opportunity to fundamentally transform the thinking of how the construct of all of these comes together to provide true telemetry, real-time performance management, move away from counter-based way of monitoring and managing network to real-time customer experience. The journey started with a complete fundamental transformation of the OSS layer. We went from monolithic boxes—from fault [and]performance management, configuration, accounting, security, workflow—into one modular architecture, and what a remarkable thing that we have seen when we have done this.

I’ve always talked in the industry about this dream towards Level 4 autonomy in networks and today…I feel this is more pragmatic reality, more of a tactical approach. I am not underestimating the complexity that we need to go through to really achieve that vision. But wouldn’t it be exciting if the industry we’re in today talks about the concepts of autonomous networks the same way that you hear in autonomous cars. I think now that the excitement that we see is that the reality is in reach. I’ve always talked about this. I really believe we are within a 24-month window to be able to achieve a considerable level of advancements in the concepts of autonomous networks.

If you look at Rakuten Mobile today, I would say we’re about 55-60% into the journey but the good news for me personally is that the foundation has already been built. That was the tough part. The tough part was just getting through these early stages of how you extract telemetry from the virtual network functions, or from our containers, or from our elements whether it is radio, core or other elements, in real time; how you ingest them into large big data platform; how you develop the AI and machine learning that sits on top of this architecture to be able to make decisive decisions on whether it is network isolation, healing, elasticity and many others. I think all in all I believe the hard work is behind us, which is about the foundation, building and now most of our focus is just about continu[ing]to really emphasize the development and the advancements of the use cases on top of this foundation.

https://www.rcrwireless.com/20210226/5g/...mation-is-a-critical-thing  

Shopback is looking to dominate 2021

Date: January 26, 2021

If you like cashback or in general, like to save on your purchases, the chances are you’re very familiar with Shopback. This Singaporean startup has been at the forefront of the cashback revolution since they started in 2014.

While not a new concept even back then, most people knew cashback from credit cards and Shopback was probably the first brand in Southeast Asia to go strong with that concept.

As the pandemic continues to ruin everyone’s year once again, Shopback has grown from strength to strength. They boast over 1,000 new brands on their platform. While expansion has slowed due to COVID-19, it hasn’t stopped them growing in-market across APAC.

https://techcollectivesea.com/2021/01/26/...looking-to-dominate-2021/
 

Rakuten is one of the owners of Everledger

Everledger with new products

Authenticate, transfer, and track products by creating unique object IDs and custom digital experiences accessed with mobile device interaction. Beginning in April 2021, manufacturers can provide clear evidence of production details for object-level provenance records added to the blockchain as a part of the Everledger Platform. Within this first version, intelligent labelling is incorporated in the object, where downstream participants can access records with mobile devices.

https://www.everledger.io/our-platform/release-notes/  

COVID-19 accelerates e-commerce market growth in Japan: GlobalData

By Indiaretailing Bureau

January 22, 2021

Japan is one of the most developed e-commerce markets globally and ranks second in Asia, only behind China. The market has registered sustainable growth over the last five years supported by high mobile and online penetration and increasing consumer confidence in online transactions. The growth in the e-commerce has been further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

An analysis of GlobalData’s E-Commerce Analytics reveals that e-commerce sales in Japan are estimated to grow by 10.1% in 2020 to reach JPY21.4 trillion (US$197.1bn), compared to earlier pre-COVID-19 estimate of 7.2%. E-commerce sales are expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.5% between 2020 and 2024, to reach JPY28.6 trillion (US$263.5bn) in 2024.

Nikhil Reddy, Banking and Payments Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “While the crisis caused a plunge in the overall consumer spending, there is a rise in online spending, as wary consumers stay home and use online channels. With social distancing rules in place and closure of many brick and mortar stores, shoppers had to embrace online channel even for day to day shopping.”

According to the ‘Household Consumption Survey (May 2020)’ conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan, the percentage of households using online shopping reached 50.5% in May 2020, a 8.2 percentage points rise from same period last year.

https://www.indiaretailing.com/2021/01/22/...wth-in-japan-globaldata/
 

In our network, the same person can actually manage every single network element, which brings operational efficiency

March 4, 2021

Although the well-established equipment vendors tend to favor a more traditional RAN architecture, a new breed of vendor is supporting the rollout of open RAN technology, which enables operators to mix and match systems from different vendors. As these systems all use the same open architecture, they can be managed in the same way – the operator doesn’t need to employ engineers that are expert in how a specific proprietary system works. Similarly, with an open approach, network automation systems will be compatible with equipment from multiple vendors, rather than only working with kit from a single vendor. “In our network, the same person can actually manage every single network element, which brings operational efficiency,” says Rawat.

Rakuten Mobile is working with Altiostar, Robin.io, Airspan, QCT, NEC and other challengers of the status quo to deploy a low-cost 5G network using its own virtualization layer. It is even engaging with contract manufacturers directly. “We started getting into the hardware, we started getting into the components, we actually opened up the boxes,” says Rawat. This enables significant reductions in hardware costs for 5G compared to the traditional model.

https://rakuten.today/blog/...he-future-of-radio-access-networks.html
 

Is this the coolest (and most misunderstood) job in mobile?

3 hours ago

Sagiv Draznin has a message for the telco world: In the age of 5G, virtualization and automation, operators are the new engineers.

The title engineer has something of an illustrious ring to it for those technically-minded people pursuing a career in telecommunications. However, Draznin argues that the virtualized nature of Rakuten’s revolutionary mobile network - and all the networks that will follow in its footsteps - means that the role of operators has become more important than ever.

After all, the name says it all, he quips. “We’re MNOs. Mobile Network Operators. That’s what we do. We operate.”

As senior vice president of Rakuten Mobile’s operations department, it isn’t too surprising that Draznin would make such a bold claim. But it’s a claim that Draznin is in a good position to make, having come from an engineering background himself. Originally from Israel, he majored in electrical engineering, before working at Cisco, Verizon, and other companies in the telecommunications industry for the better part of two decades.

THE THINGS THAT WE’RE DOING TODAY AT RAKUTEN ARE GOING TO BE COMMON KNOWLEDGE IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS. I THINK THE RARITY OF CLOUD AMONG MOBILE OPERATORS, PUBLIC OR PRIVATE, IS GOING TO DISAPPEAR.

SAGIV DRAZNIN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS FOR RAKUTEN MOBILE
“Throughout my career, I was always part of engineering and architecture,” he relates. “I was heavily involved in designing the principles and standards for network architecture. So, I’m a bit of a veteran of this industry.”

For Draznin, the big switch came in 2019, when he joined Rakuten Mobile. “Today, I’m head of operations at the most sophisticated cloud-native telco in the world,” he says. “The jump from engineering was like night and day, oil and water. And it’s so much fun. I’m almost regretting that I didn’t get into operations to start with.”

Operations in the cloud era
“THE TERM OPERATIONS SCARES PEOPLE. IT HAS THIS CONNOTATION OF THE OLD WORLD OF MAINTENANCE, WORKING AROUND THE CLOCK TO MAINTAIN PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND DOING A VERY REPETITIVE DAY-TO-DAY JOB. [HOWEVER,] IN THE ERA THAT WE ARE IN, OPERATIONS IS THE NEW FRONTIER.”

“It’s pretty amazing what’s happening in the industry right now,” Draznin says. “The things that we’re doing today at Rakuten are going to be common knowledge in the next couple of years. I think the rarity of cloud among mobile operators, public or private, is going to disappear.”

Heading up operations for the world’s first end-to-end virtualized mobile network, Draznin has something of a bird’s eye view of the industry’s progress. He compares it to a similar transformation that took place in the IT world not too long ago.

“Years ago, every company had a big room full of email servers, and a whole lot of people maintaining them,” he reminisces. “Today that would be the exception - I don’t think companies today are anywhere near as likely as they were then to host their own email system in their own network.”

Now, it’s the telco industry’s turn. “Mobile networks are going through the same process. We’re becoming more IT-oriented, more cloud-oriented, and much more automated.”

This transformation means that operators are playing a very different role to what they were in the past. Automation - which Draznin believes to be the next industrial revolution - means that the mundane tasks that human operators once handled are being taken care of by machines. It’s now the job of humans to manage those machines.

https://rakuten.today/blog/...znin-operations-coolest-job-mobile.html  

Intel Xeon Ice Lake processor will work in Rakuten Mobile‘s next-gen mobile cloud platform service

Intel launches Xeon Ice Lake processor with built-in AI

by Matt Hamblen |
Apr 6, 2021 11:00am

Dan Rodriguez, general manager of Intel’s network platforms group, said Xeon processors are the “workhorse for our business.” He put the total silicon market potential at $25 billion by 2024.
In 2020, Intel saw an improvement in sales of 20% over 2019 from Xeon, reaching $6 billion out of Intel’s total revenue of $77.9 billion.

Networking customers want the ability to deploy 5G standalone core networks with architecture built from the ground up, Rodriguez said. They also want 5G with AI built out at the edge.

“They want to support a wide variety of workloads, both network and edge, with compelling performance,” he said in an interview.

With Xeon, Intel has shown communication service providers they can increase 5G performance by 42%. The company is working with Rakuten Mobile to use Xeon for its next-gen mobile cloud platform service.

https://www.fierceelectronics.com/electronics/...e-processor-built-ai  

Another of Rakuten Mobile’s major achievements in the industry has been the decoupling of the hardware and software required to run the network, and the democratization of vendor selection. While operators had long relied on a single network vendor to provide bespoke software solutions to work with their own proprietary network hardware, the open nature of Rakuten Mobile’s network means that systems can run on off-the-shelf devices provided by several vendors.

“We are no longer confined to the traditional path of picking a single vendor to buy both hardware and software from. We have the flexibility to do that on our own now,” Draznin explains. “This opens a totally new ecosystem of suppliers and new opportunities in the market.”

A byproduct of this is that operators are also in charge of driving their own sophisticated software systems, creating new demand for broader skill sets.

“Because we’re so software-centric, we need people who can go through the network, north, south, east and west, and really understand everything that’s going on.”

“I think people misjudge what operations is in the new age,” Draznin laments. “The term operations scares people. It has this connotation of the old world of maintenance, working around the clock to maintain physical infrastructure and doing a very repetitive day-to-day job. That was my perception as well before I joined Rakuten Mobile as the head of operations, only to realize that that’s such a mistake. In the era that we are in, operations is the new frontier.”

“THIS IS THE PLACE WHERE STUFF HAPPENS AND WHERE YOU LEARN THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PROVIDING EXCEPTIONAL USER AND SERVICE EXPERIENCE.”

Thanks to the virtualized, automated, software-centric nature of Rakuten Mobile’s new network  - and future networks following in its footsteps -  working in modern operations is anything but repetitive.

“Once you step into operations, you get the luxury to look at the end-to-end - every product, every piece of architecture -  everything that moves in this network basically needs an operations aspect,” Draznin reveals. “It’s one big playground, which I adore.”

But operations’ image problem endures. Shortly after joining Rakuten Mobile, Draznin held a small hiring experiment. “I published two positions on LinkedIn,” he explains. “One was in the operations organization, the other in engineering. The exact same job. But one said operations in the title, the other engineering. Guess what the ratio of applicants was? One to ten. For the same position.”

Draznin seizes every chance he gets to shift this sentiment. “There’s nothing that I like more than talking to new grads, new employees, and giving them a glimpse of what operations can do for their career, what it can do for their life, and where it’s going to put them in the long term.”

His biggest selling point is the sheer breadth of experience the field has to offer. “You will learn devices, backhaul, radio, BSS, core, intranet, cloud and more. And you can do whatever you want with that knowledge.”

Quelle: wie 6522  

AST SpaceMobile to Begin Trading on Nasdaq as 'ASTS' Nasdaq:ASTS
(MENAFN - GlobeNewsWire - Nasdaq) MIDLAND, Texas, April 06, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASTS) ('AST SpaceMobile' or the 'Company'), the company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by standard mobile phones, today announced that it completed its business combination with New Providence Acquisition Corp. ("New Providence"). New Providence's stockholders approved the business combination on April 1, 2021. Beginning on April 7, 2021, AST SpaceMobile's Class A common stock and warrants will start trading on Nasdaq under the ticker symbols 'ASTS' and 'ASTSW', respectively.

https://menafn.com/1101872408/...Trading-on-Nasdaq-as-ASTS-NasdaqASTS