NTT Docomo Expands Open vRAN Options in its 5G OREC

We have done quite a few blog posts on NTT Docomo on our blogs (see related posts at the bottom) as they always share a lot of latest useful and relevant information. In a blog post last year, we talked about their 5G Open RAN Ecosystem (OREC). 

Back in September, NTT Docomo announced that it will be adding a fourth type of flexible and highly scalable virtualized base station (vRAN) to its verification environment for Open RAN that will allow equipment and components of various vendors to integrate via standardized specifications. The press release said:

The new virtualized base station will combine NEC Corporation's open virtualized RAN software, Red Hat Openshift, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.'s inline accelerator cards and Hewlett Packard Enterprise's servers. This will be DOCOMO's first time to use the Qualcomm® X100 5G RAN Accelerator Card and the HPE ProLiant DL110 Telco server, the latter optimized specifically for Open RAN workloads to improve system performance and power efficiency.

Since February, DOCOMO has been providing global carriers with access to its Shared Open Lab environment to allow them to mix and match the equipment and components of various vendors in order to verify performance with virtualized base stations. In addition to three types of virtualized base station equipment/system configurations that carriers have been accessing so far, the new configuration will become available for verification in the Shared Open Lab starting in 2023.

As the increasing global availability of 5G continues to raise interest in Open RAN, DOCOMO has been a leader in helping telecoms worldwide to prepare to introduce this highly versatile new technology. In February 2021, DOCOMO was joined by 12 global equipment vendors in establishing the 5G Open RAN Ecosystem (OREC) to promote Open RAN, which supported the development of the virtualized base station being announced today.

DOCOMO and its OREC partners plan to continue adding new equipment/system combinations before and after commercializing virtualized base stations, which is expected within the current fiscal year ending in March 2023.

Through the promotion of Open RAN, DOCOMO looks forward to continuing to enhance the efficiency and flexibility mobile communication networks around the world.

In fact their OREC page has this and a lot more details here.

At Telecom Infra Project's Fyuz 22 conference, NTT Docomo and other operators shared their vision, progress and approach to Open RAN. You can watch the panel discussion here.

Related Posts:

• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: NTT Docomo's 5G Network is based on 'Open RAN' Principles
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: NTT Docomo's 5G RAN Infrastructure
• The 3G4G Blog: Open RAN Terminology and Players
• Operator Watch Blog: NTT Docomo outlines their 5G Journey and 5G Network Deployment details
• Operator Watch Blog: NTT Docomo is Open and Virtualized Networks Leader
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Docomo 5G Open Innovation Cloud
• Connectivity Technology Blog: NTT Docomo and Airbus Demonstrate Zephyr HAPS Wireless Broadband Connectivity
• Free 6G Training: NTT Docomo is Hoping to Repeat 5G Experimental Trials Success with 6G
• Free 6G Training: Special Articles on 5G Evolution & 6G in NTT Docomo Technical Journal
• Free 6G Training: NTT Docomo's revised '5G Evolution and 6G' White Paper 

Wi-Fi: Future Roadmap and LTE

At the WBA Wi-Fi Global Congress, Intel provided a good summary of the way things are progressing in the WiFi world, including the standards updates that are going on. Luckily I found a video by the same author in from an IEEE conference which is also embedded below.

Wi-Fi is becoming important and a useful rule of thumb is that the spectrum in 5GHz is roughly around 10 times that of 2.4GHz and the spectrum is 60GHz is roughly around 10 times that of 5GHz. (not all spectrum is available everywhere so just use this as a rough guide).


As I mentioned in a presentation I gave this week, there are three different approaches being proposed at the radio level; LTE-U, LAA and LWA. I wrote a post on LWA not long back on the 3G4G blog here.



Dave Wright from Ruckus Wireless has kindly shared a recent presentation on different proposals for LTE operation in unlicensed spectrum. The timeline above shows how quickly things are moving. Here is a the presentation

It would be important from Wi-Fi vendors point of view that LTE-WiFI Link Aggregation is standardised as part of Release-13 as there would be an option which would be agreeable to everyone.

Ubiquisys to focus on 'indoor metro' and enterprise at #MWC13

Our intelligent small cell technology has delivered 99.999% availability in some of the world’s most demanding indoor metro deployments. And we’ve doubled the number of tier 1 systems integrator partnerships from 2 to 4, meaning that Ubiquisys intelligent small cell tech is now embedded in the major slice of commercially available solutions.

LTE multi-mode small cells – focus on indoor metro and enterprise
Working with silicon platforms from long-term partners Texas Instruments and Broadcom, Ubiquisys will be demonstrating a range of novel LTE/3G/WiFi products that can handle the immediate need to ramp capacity and provide an adaptive evolution to LTE provision. Ubiquisys has deployed outdoor small cells but our focus is on intelligent cells for indoor public spaces, where the majority of mobile data is consumed. The combination of abundant sites, simple installation and automatic operation means that indoor cells can be economically deployed in much larger numbers for a sustainable ramp in integrated 3G/4G/WiFi capacity (see our infographic on indoor/outdoor small cells).

High availability indoor metrocells
Our latest products feature ActiveCell® high-availability software designed, developed and deployed in 10s of thousands of Small Cells serving high capacity demand public environments. ActiveCell® high-availability software has now been proven in thousands of indoor metro sites in South Korea and Japan, delivering 99.999% availability and parity with macro network features and KPIs. This is in addition to the proven ActiveRadio® the most widely deployed intelligent self-organising cellular small cell, and ActiveSON® self-organising grids of multiple networked small cells that are continuing to be commercially deployed in Enterprises in significant numbers on a daily basis.

Complete article at: The Ubiquisys Blog | Ubiquisys Small Cells & Femtocells:

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