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    Home5G & BeyondNew NEC software offers seamless migration from fourth to sixth generation

    New NEC software offers seamless migration from fourth to sixth generation

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    Extends its multi-vendor range of Open RAN options

    NEC Corporation (NEC) has extended it Open Networks ‘ecosystem’ with software that will make every migration from 4G to 5G, advanced 5G and even 6G, much easier. The new pain-free option in the open virtualized RAN software is called the vCU/vDU software suite. NEC said it will provide its Open Radio Access Networks (RAN) portfolio will give operators more choice in every course of action needed for revamping any telecoms infrastructure.

    NEC’s ecosystem/portfolio includes software from both NEC and its partners in Open RAN radio units, software, open transport, converged packet core, automation and orchestration. NEC said it will continue integrating, commercialising and deploying multiple ecosystem partners in this vRAN software suite to meet its customers’ needs.

    This new vCU/vDU software suite promises seamless migration from 4G to 5G and beyond. It offers standards-based interfaces for integration with ORAN Radio Units (O-RUs) and other components of NEC’s multi-vendor ecosystem. The virtualized CU/DU features pre-integrated NEC radio units, core and transport blueprints. It is certified with a range of third-party radios, to avoid time wasting on sourcing units.

    “We’re giving our customers another option,” said Patrick Lopez, NEC’s vice president of product management for 5G. This time it’s a pre-integrated, automated vCU/vDU solution to define their RAN blueprints while benefiting from a ​​virtualized Open RAN compliant system, Lopez’s statement read. “This software suite is built to bring operators into the cloud native world with no compromise on performance or quality,” said Lopez.

    Technical information

    NEC’s cloud-native vCU/vDU software suite is fully open and automated for deployment and consolidated operation, supporting 3GPP and O-RAN interfaces on private and public cloud infrastructure. It uses the best of cloud-native architecture, including horizontal and vertical scaling, auto-healing and redundancy. It is designed for mobile network evolution, including the next-generation radio technologies, namely 5G-Advanced and 6G. 

    A high-performance, power-efficient system enables flexible control over resource allocation in the RAN, said NEC. It is designed for easy integration with the O-RAN defined near-Real Time RAN Intelligent Controller. This allows the embedded vCU/vDU control logic with Artificial Intelligent (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to dynamically optimize RAN network performance.

    NEC is also developing high value-add RIC Apps to complement its OvRAN vCU/vDU software suite such as dynamic mMIMO (massive multiple-input and multiple-output) resource and power optimization.