Red Hat, a global leader in open-source solutions, plays a crucial role in modern enterprise IT by providing reliable, scalable, and secure software solutions built on open standards. As a subsidiary of IBM, Red Hat is known for its flagship product, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which serves as the foundation for many enterprise IT infrastructures. Beyond operating systems, Red Hat offers a comprehensive portfolio of cloud-native technologies, including Kubernetes-based container orchestration, middleware, automation tools, and hybrid cloud solutions. Red Hat OpenShift in Telecommunications

In the telecommunications industry, Red Hat is a key enabler of digital transformation, helping service providers modernize their networks and IT operations. With solutions like Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the company supports telecom operators in deploying cloud-native infrastructure, automating network management, and implementing scalable, carrier-grade solutions. By fostering an open ecosystem, Red Hat empowers telecom providers to innovate rapidly, reduce costs, and enhance customer experiences.

At Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025 in Barcelona, Red Hat has made several significant announcements, reinforcing its commitment to driving innovation in telecommunications through open-source technologies.

Safaricom

Safaricom, a leading Kenyan communications provider with over 45 million subscribers, has deployed Red Hat OpenShift as a common cloud platform for applications, including M-PESA. M-PESA supports 51 million customers and processes over $314 billion annually, promoting financial inclusion across Africa.

Previously using Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Satellite, Safaricom initially deployed upstream Kubernetes but faced stability issues. It then adopted Red Hat OpenShift for its production-ready maturity, enterprise-grade support, and carrier-grade stability.

Collaborating with Copy Cat Group and Red Hat, Safaricom aligned security, development, and platform teams through joint technical workshops and developer training. In 2024, Safaricom expanded to Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus, integrating Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security, Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management, and Red Hat Quay for enhanced cybersecurity, orchestration, and scalable content management.

Red Hat OpenShift now runs all of Safaricom’s containers and supports 70 percent of its tier 1 and tier 2 applications, with a shift to bare-metal for improved control and cost efficiency. Benefits include improved customer experience, 99.98 percent availability (up from 93 percent), faster issue resolution with Red Hat’s technical account management, 2x faster solution deployment, reduced cluster deployment time from two days to two hours, streamlined policy enforcement, enhanced collaboration, increased scalability, and consistent hybrid cloud security management.

Duncan Kabira Ndirangu, head of IT infrastructure, Safaricom, said: “Customer experience is paramount for us and with Red Hat’s platforms and support teams we have been able to gain performance improvements across our entire IT infrastructure.”

James Maitai, chief technology information Officer, Safaricom, said:

“Through its innovative solutions and open source expertise, Red Hat has enabled us to enhance our internal efficiencies, streamline operations, and accelerate our digital transformation.”

StarHub

StarHub, a leading Singaporean telecommunications provider, has implemented Cloud Infinity, a hybrid multi-cloud solution built on Red Hat OpenShift. This deployment enables StarHub to optimize costs, meet compliance requirements, maintain operational control, and seamlessly deliver new services to enhance customer experiences.

StarHub recognizes Red Hat OpenShift as its preferred reference platform for accelerating hybrid cloud transformation and cloud-native workloads. Cloud Infinity is designed to power digital platforms and AI-enabled technologies for both StarHub and its customers, leveraging Red Hat OpenShift.

Ayush Sharma, chief technology officer, StarHub, said:

“Red Hat OpenShift has been crucial to our strategy, enabling us to apply a standard operating framework and toolset across multiple cloud environments.”

Rakuten Mobile

Red Hat will provide Rakuten Mobile access to its expertise, hardened technology, and experience in managing complex Linux environments, allowing Rakuten Mobile’s experts to focus on innovation and customer experience.

Red Hat’s solutions will also support Rakuten Symphony, a global provider of cloud-native open RAN infrastructure and services, to enhance its platforms and empower telecommunications providers with the necessary tools for operations.

Red Hat will assist Rakuten Cloud in certifying its Cloud-Native Storage on Red Hat OpenShift, ensuring seamless integration with Kubernetes-native tooling. Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony will leverage Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s advanced security features, vendor neutrality, and hybrid cloud consistency to drive open RAN initiatives, licensing, private 5G partnerships, and satellite-enabled LTE connectivity, aimed at expanding access to remote regions.

“By using Red Hat’s open source expertise and solutions we are able to deliver best-in-class network operations and cost-effective services to our mobile customers in Japan,”

Mibu Ryoata, general manager, the Telecommunication Cloud Platform Department, Rakuten Mobile, said.

Orange

Orange, a leading telco operator and digital service provider, announced a collaboration with Red Hat to unify Orange International Networks’ containerized and virtual network functions with Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

Orange began its network transformation eight years ago, adopting a network softwarization strategy that virtualized over 30 telco functions from 12 vendors, including SD-WAN, voice, CDN, and roaming, with a telco cloud footprint ensuring latency of less than 10 milliseconds for B2B and wholesale customers.

Orange is transitioning to a cloud-native infrastructure using Red Hat OpenShift for cloud-native network functions, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization to enhance virtualized workloads, and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform for fully automated deployment and scaling.

This collaboration advances a vendor-agnostic, cloud-native, and automated framework for Orange’s international telco cloud infrastructure. The platform will host SD-WAN, SASE gateway, IMS, 4G and 5G core, IoT, and roaming services, with six new PoPs already live.

Benefits include greater availability and operational efficiency with near-zero downtime, enhanced scalability and flexibility for hosting both virtualized and containerized workloads, faster time to market with four times faster service deployment, improved resilience through infrastructure as code, strengthened security with built-in network and container isolation, and a reduced carbon footprint through optimized hardware usage.

Orange plans to expand its common telco cloud infrastructure based on Red Hat OpenShift to 75 telco cloud PoPs globally within two years, migrating from 50 OpenStack platforms and adding 25 new PoPs. By reusing existing equipment and leveraging power monitoring capabilities in Red Hat OpenShift, Orange aims to further its sustainability goals while enhancing network capabilities.

“We’ve been collaborating with Red Hat in recent years on our network softwarization strategy, achieving flexibility and programmability objectives for services provided to large business and wholesale customers. We have recently selected Red Hat OpenShift for our next generation of telco cloud, and our move to containerization,”

Jean Louis Le Roux, executive vice president, International Networks, Orange, and chief technology and information officer, Orange Wholesale, said.

Fujitsu

Red Hat announced a collaboration with Fujitsu to deliver a virtualized radio access network (vRAN) solution on Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes.

Fujitsu has selected Red Hat OpenShift as its preferred hybrid cloud platform to enable a cloud-native, AI-ready vRAN solution that enhances network efficiency, optimization, and scalability for diverse applications.

By utilizing Red Hat OpenShift as a common cloud platform, service providers can reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 40 percent through improved resource sharing, productivity, and automation. Fujitsu vRAN on Red Hat OpenShift aligns with O-RAN Alliance standards for RAN and O-Cloud architecture, offering an integrated solution driven by open-source innovation and community collaboration.

KDDI

Red Hat announced a collaboration with KDDI, a Japanese telecommunications operator, to develop and deploy an open radio access network (Open RAN) built on Red Hat OpenShift. The initiative aims to streamline Day 0 and Day 2 operations by enabling faster Open RAN software installation and upgrades, reducing service downtime due to maintenance.

Red Hat OpenShift serves as the open standard platform for KDDI’s mobile network services, and KDDI is leveraging its cloud-native capabilities to enhance Open RAN functionality, creating a horizontal cloud platform that spans the entire network and supports multiple functions and vendors.

Red Hat is working with KDDI and Samsung to enhance network flexibility and stability using Samsung’s software-based network solutions, including vRAN. KDDI’s Open RAN on Red Hat OpenShift is designed to minimize downtime and accelerate software installation and upgrade processes through features such as image-based install (IBI) and image-based upgrade (IBU).

“KDDI is pleased to further extend our collaboration with Red Hat for Open RAN deployment that can support future innovation. Built on Red Hat OpenShift, we believe that using IBI and IBU capabilities demonstrates a leading-edge approach to expand our Open RAN deployment,”

Kazuhiro Furuhata, vice president and general manager, Network Node Technical Development Division, KDDI, said.

Additionally, Red Hat OpenShift provides zero-touch provisioning to automate deployment tasks, utilizing Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes. This collaboration equips service providers with Open RAN capabilities that meet modern network demands and support future innovation. Red Hat OpenShift in Telecommunications