Japanese NEC Corporation announced on Monday that its in-house developed and commercialised software for virtualized radio access network (vRAN) base stations will be offered to telecom operators in Japan and internationally. The company aims to deploy more than 50,000 vRAN base stations by fiscal 2026.
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Key Benefits of vRAN
According to the company, vRAN technology enhances 5G services by optimizing operational costs, enabling flexible network design, and accelerating deployment. It aligns with Open RAN principles and integrates with NTT's Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) concept, fostering innovation while reducing power consumption.
Open RAN and NTT’s IOWN Integration
NEC says its vRAN achieves carrier-grade network quality that complies with the specifications defined by the O-RAN ALLIANCE. Additionally, it can interoperate with equipment from different vendors and cloud environments.
NEC also highlighted that its vRAN software uses a fully containerised architecture and is based on 5G hardware base station technology. It uses Qualcomm Technologies' inline accelerator, the Qualcomm Dragonwing X100, to speed up processing, and achieves the high-speed and large capacity communications for 5G.
Cloud-Native 5G Network
NEC further said it has already deployed a 5G core network that uses virtualisation technology, and the commercialisation of this software for vRAN will enable the deployment of a complete cloud-native 5G network. Moreover, by utilizing this software, resource reallocation through virtualization is possible, enabling as much as a 65 percent reduction in total device power consumption when compared to existing 5G base station equipment, it added.
NEC has also developed a Near Real-time RAN Intelligent Controller (Near-RT RIC) to enhance the functionality of vRAN. Moreover, when combined with NEC's solutions for advanced network operation management, the construction time for mobile infrastructure can be reduced by approximately 70 percent compared to conventional methods, enabling large-scale commercial deployment of 5G networks in a short period of time.
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"NEC is excited to announce the commercialisation of our vRAN software, which will play a critical role in shaping the future of network technologies," said Takashi Sato, corporate senior vice president at NEC.
"We are very pleased to see our strong collaboration with NEC moving forward with commercial deployment of the Virtualised Distributed Unit (vDU) using the Qualcomm Dragonwing X100 accelerator card," said Gerardo Giaretta, vice president and general manager of 5G RAN infrastructure, Qualcomm Technologies.
Going forward, NEC said it will continue to work towards providing high-performance 5G networks that are geared towards 5G Advanced and 6G.
