NEC Debuts Multi-carrier Radio Solution for 5G

NEC Corporation, a provider of wireless solutions, ha unveiled a new iPASOLINK IAP3 series High-Power Outdoor Units (ODU) and a next generation Outdoor Branching (BR) Combiner (OBC2) to help answer the challenges operators face in increasing 5G network capacity and accelerating deployment needs.

NEC's iPASOLINK ODUs are well-known and trusted for their reliability and market-leading performance by network operators that require high availability and high capacity operation over a wide range of challenging environmental conditions. The new IAP3 series ODU's continue to deliver high quality, and now feature significantly improved RF performance in an energy efficient, compact, lightweight housing.

The new IAP3 delivers up to 5dB of transmission power improvement in the higher modulations, crucial to operators looking for high capacity links with high availability performance. The IAP3 supports the 6 to 23 GHz bands and channel widths up to 112 MHz with adaptive modulation (AMR) support up to 4096 QAM.

Automatic transmitter power control (ATPC) is enabled on the IAP3, ensuring efficient operation and that all standard radio configurations are supported, including Cross Polarization Interference Cancellation (XPIC) and Space Diversity operation. The IAP3 is also fully supported by the new N-on-1 hybrid coupler.

The N-on-1 hybrid coupler provides operators with a simple means to increase capacity and availability. It also offers improved flexibility, allowing operators to use either multiple channels in a single band or combine channels in different frequency bands. Moreover, inventory is also greatly reduced as the system uses the same IAP3 and IAG3 ODU's as deployed in other parts of the network.

Operators may start off with a single channel and easily upgrade in the future as spectrum becomes available, reusing and redeploying the same ODUs from other parts of the network. The N-on-1 hybrid is available in a compact, lightweight, direct mount package reducing demands on tower hardware.

NEC is also pleased to announce the release of the next generation Outdoor Branching Combiner (OBC2), offering flexible configurations up to 16 radio channels (8 channels in both polarizations) in ACAP, ACCP, CCDP and CCDP+ACCP configurations supporting capacities up to 10 Gbps. The new architecture simplifies field upgrades, and a simple cascading option allows support for Space Diversity.

The OBC2 size has been halved and weight reduced by up to 80%, reducing overall tower loading and aperture requirements. Moreover, the IP66 rated construction delivers reliable maintenance-free operation in the most severe outdoor environments. The OBC2 provides support for operation at higher modulations up to 4096 QAM and delivers superior RF performance, minimizing transmission power losses through reductions to insertion loss and signal distortion in the branching circuit.

"NEC continues to provide innovative products for our customers' requirements. A key element for 5G is the bundling of bandwidth with configurations that feature high-power and flexible channel arrangement, which enables the use of faster transport. NEC's high-power ODUs and the next generation Outdoor BR Combiner will help customers to expand the capabilities and flexibility of wireless solutions for 5G," said Hideyuki Muto, Deputy General Manager, Wireless Solutions Division, NEC Corporation.

Both the IAP3 and OBC2 are part of NEC's end-to-end high performance 5G network infrastructure solutions covering RAN, core network, optical and wireless transport, Orchestration / Marketplace (BSS) and a wide array of network infrastructure services.