MWC 2026: Rakuten Symphony built an OSS to manage coverage, more via satellite

• Building on D2D work with AST SpaceMobile, Rakuten Symphony has developed an OSS for non-terrestrial networks
• Rakuten Symphony developed the system for Rakuten Mobile and is now selling it to other MNOs and satellite providers
• The OSS adds a fourth dimension of time for satellite tracking

MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2026, BARCELONA 2026 — Japanese operator Rakuten Mobile said here at Mobile World Congress 2026 that it is launching direct-to-device (D2D) satellite services in Japan with AST SpaceMobile in the 4th quarter of 2026.

That's the sexy stuff, right? Gleaming rockets thrusting their payloads into low-Earth orbit (LEO), why look any further than that?

Well, the Rakuten Group's OSS/BSS and automation company, Rakuten Symphony, invited Fierce behind the curtain (well, into a boxy little room on their booth anyway) to talk about their new non-terrestrial network (NTN) OSS system that the company developed as Rakuten Mobile agreed their deal with AST SpaceMobile. 

Thrilling, huh?

Rakuten Symphony's Chief Product Officer in the OSS Business Unit, Anshul Bhatt, told Fierce that the company is offering the NTN OSS software to multiple mobile operators and several satellite providers, in addition to Rakuten Mobile. This is typical for Symphony, it usually has Rakuten Mobile eat the telco dogfood before selling it on to other mobile operators. Now it has new space-bound audience that it hopes will lap up its delicious OSS fare, the D2D satellite operators.

Bhatt said that after hooking up with AST SpaceMobile Rakuten is talking to other satellite providers and more. "We have been talking to them," Bhatt confirmed.

NTN OSS features

Ratuken Symphony said that the software is a good way to address the OSS considerations that are blocking the adoption of NTN services now. NTN providers are "good at the space tech part of it," Bhatt noted, adding that as partnerships are building between the standard MNOs and new NTN providers, the model is firming up. 

"What we realized is there is a gap in understanding... of how to operate these networks for their own global NTN networks," Bhatt said. "Terrestrial networks are 3D in nature, there is latitude, longitude and altitude...but in NTN there is a fourth dimension called time."

"Depending on the time of day the map would be different depending on what version of satellite is overhead. If there's a smaller or older version of a satellite passing through or a bigger, newer one, the coverage or the quality might be different," Bhatt said.

So, he explained that Rakuten Symphony integrated the satcom data link escape (DLE) data with the satellite scheduler data as well as the telco and non-telco telemetry. "Our performance data is not aggregated through one-hour or 15-minute intervals, which is very typical in the terrestrial world," he said. "Rather, it's real-time."

We created this service-aware filtering of the performance data, he said. "There may be two or three satellites that could have exchanged [positions] or passed though a given region in 15 minutes," Bhatt said.

Automated provisioning 

Another interesting aspect of is automated geological cell provisioning, Bhatt noted. "Let's say AT&T wants to create a geographical coverage to a given region for a satellite," Bhatt noted. That takes some real-time planning and automation, he said. "We automated that whole config management and cell mapping process... so, for example if there is a hurricane in...a certain region of Miami, you could basically create an NTN coverage on-demand through one click of a button.

All of these aspects can be viewed and managed on a screen. The company also has a satellite version of drive-testing that might be referred to as fly testing. "We created a solar panel UE [phone-like device]," Bhatt said, which uses a standard Samsung device...to audit satellites when they are passing. They can do benchmarking tests, coverage tests and report the performance of the handset based on a remotely configured recipe.

Bhatt said that the company has received interest from MNOs and NTN providers alike on an OSS system that provides a management-capable dashboard into a satellite's view of the world below.

Maybe satcom OSS has a touch of rizz after all?