Boost Mobile expanded work with Rakuten Symphony that will see it deploy the vendor’s Configuration Manager platform toward broader control of network resources, a network that has garnered interest as of late.

Rakuten Symphony’s platform is designed to automate management of network configuration across multivendor and multitechnology environments. It uses intent-based networking to manage configuration drift, reduce human error, and enact strict compliance.

The vendor explains the service as “much like an advanced autopilot system for the network; it allows engineers to maintain full operational control and crucial oversight while the system automatically standardizes these complex configuration processes.”

Boost Mobile, which operates such a complex and ever-changing environment, and plans to use the platform for centralized observability, proactive management, and to support “faster and error-proof deployment of updates across multiple product instances.”

“To keep pace with our network transformation, we needed a solution that made our day-to-day operations fundamentally smoother,” Boost Mobile Network SVP Dawood Shahdad noted in a statement on the deal. “For our customers, this means a more robust and dependable 5G connection.”

The deal builds on long-standing work between the two companies dating back to Boost Mobile’s parent company Dish Network tapping Rakuten to provide its operating support system (OSS) service assurance suite in late 2021.

Some history

The expansion also comes four months after Rakuten Symphony hired former Boost Mobile network executive Amit Bhardwaj as president of its radio access network (RAN) business unit. Bhardwaj served a short stint as SVP for RAN and device engineering at Boost Mobile, which followed 16 years at Ericsson culminating with a position as VP and CTO for the vendor’s work with T-Mobile US.

The expanded work also comes under the shadow of reports that SpaceX was looking to acquire Boost Mobile to underpin its much-hyped Starlink Mobile terrestrial service.