Rakuten Mobile has confirmed the launch of commercial services via the 700 MHz spectrum.

The spectrum, dubbed the “platinum band” was allocated by the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

In its announcement, Rakuten noted that it has rolled out commercial services in the band while leveraging "the expertise gained by building its nationwide fully virtualized, cloud-native mobile network based on Open RAN standards in the 1.7 GHz band."

The telco said that it will continue to expand its rollout of the 700 MHz band to more of its base stations.

Rakuten added that in addition to deploying 700 MHz base stations, by the end of the year the telco will increase its 5G (Sub6) network coverage in the Kanto region by up to 60 percent compared to January 2024, owing to more relaxed measures preventing interference between mobile and satellite communications in shared bandwidth.

"Rakuten Mobile continues to enhance the quality of its network through a range of initiatives. These include expanding and optimizing roaming areas in cooperation with its domestic roaming partner, developing shared base stations for subways, railway lines, railway tunnels, and underground shopping centers, and continuing to expand its own 4G and 5G base station network," said Rakuten.

Since launching in 2018, Rakuten has invested heavily in its mobile business. The telco recently reached seven million customers on its mobile network.

The carrier is Japan's newest mobile network operator and the country's fourth largest, after NTT Docomo, KDDI, and SoftBank.