NEC Corporation has entered into an agreement with NTT DOCOMO to provide control units for 5G base station equipment for the commercialization of 5G services. NEC is slated to carry out development that enables existing communication equipment, such as high-density base station equipment, to be fully compatible with 5G. These developments will contribute to the successful provision of 5G services that DOCOMO aims to launch in 2020.
Currently, high-density base station equipment that NEC began providing in February 2015 is already compatible with the advanced Centralized Radio Access Network (C-RAN) architecture advocated by DOCOMO, and is now being utilized as a base station control unit. Moreover, following a software upgrade, an advance in communications from LTE to LTE-Advanced has been achieved.
Under this new agreement, NEC will achieve 5G compatibility through software upgrades and a minimal replacement of hardware to maximize the use of existing high-density base station equipment. Even after making equipment compatible with 5G, existing LTE/LTE-Advanced services will continue to be available. With the coexistence of the LTE/LTE-Advanced and 5G services, NEC will contribute to the realization of a network that meets a variety of service demands.
