(Telecompaper) Rakuten Mobile and NEC have agreed to jointly develop the containerized standalone (SA) 5G core network (5GC) to be used in Rakuten Mobile's fully virtualized cloud native 5G network. Rakuten Mobile and NEC will collaborate to build a 5GC, based on the 5GC software source code developed by NEC. Subsequent to the launch of its non-standalone (NSA) 5G service in 2020, Rakuten Mobile plans to provide its SA 5G service in Japan in 2021.