By Sam Nussey

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Rakuten Inc plans to set its big data mobile plan at 2,980 yen ($27.68) per month, or less than half of major rivals' offerings, the Nikkei business daily reported on Monday.

The company said in a statement it was not the source of the information. It will announce details of pricing plans for the network - set to launch commercially in April - at a news conference on Tuesday.

Rakuten has attracted global attention as it says it has radically cut the cost of network construction by using cloud-based software and commoditized hardware instead of proprietary equipment.

The company, which hopes the mobile service will drive traffic to its ecommerce and finance offerings, has pushed back the launch of the network after suffering build-out delays, with trial users having connection problems.

(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Tom Hogue)