NEC 5G vRAN Partner Validated

NEC’s vRAN implementation is taking a radically open approach, meaning that we design and develop our SW in full compliance with O-RAN and 3GPP specifications and with extensive use of open interfaces. While legacy monolithic RAN products created a dependency on the selected vendor, the implementation and unconditional support of standard interfaces in NEC’s solution, also referred to as horizontal openness, allows customers to selectively choose the best vendor for each function. Open standard-based implementation provides customers more choice, access to a larger vendor ecosystem, driving down costs and greatly improving efficiencies.

The horizontal disaggregation enabled by the O-RAN standard is complemented by the vertical disaggregation of the RAN by developing the NEC 5G vRAN as a cloud-native, fully containerized solution. Choosing an open cloud platform enables the utilization of COTS HW which drives down costs, enables multi-purpose reuse and provides pooling gains. Perhaps most importantly, the containerized architecture also enables leveraging the mature capabilities of a cloud platform for redundancy, scalability, management (VIM) and automation.

The vRAN SW is integrating to NEC’s industry leading, O-RAN compliant Active Antenna System with mMIMO beamforming. These Radio Units (RUs) are in large-scale commercial deployment in the most advanced mobile networks in Japan and in multiple trials globally. NEC has also developed fully containerized 4G/5G Converged Core with highest performance UPF and live network references in the Rakuten and DoCoMo networks. Netcracker, a fully-owned subsidiary of NEC and market leader in OSS/BSS systems, adds a management and automation suite to complement our portfolio of network elements. Based on this rich legacy, Netcracker has built the Open vRAN Domain Orchestration solution that brings together the orchestration, OSS and analytics functions needed to fully automate all aspects of the RAN domain.

Well-defined, standardized and truly open interfaces and APIs are vitally important to the creation of an open ecosystem. NEC has been a pioneer and leader in open disaggregated networks since the early days of SDN, having contributed to 3GPP for more than 20 years and actively participating in the O-RAN standardization process. NEC is a long-time leading network equipment supplier in Japan. With radical openness at the center of its 5G network plans, complemented by unique SI capabilities, NEC is well-positioned to provide global leadership as the industry transitions to 5G and beyond.