Tokyo - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced the establishment of its Global Open RAN Center of Excellence (CoE) in the U.K. to accelerate the global adoption of Open RAN and to further strengthen its structure for accelerating the global deployment of 5G.

This new CoE is responsible for business and solution development, product development support, project execution and technical support for NEC's global Open RAN business. The CoE helps communication service providers (CSP) introduce Open RAN worldwide through its in-depth knowledge of wireless technology and NFV businesses, as well as NEC’s experience in supporting large scale Open RAN commercial deployment in Japan. It will also form the backbone of NEC’s global project delivery capability, building on the company’s long term experience in communication network deployment, including wireless networks, across the globe.

Its operations will be further strengthened and scaled through an Open RAN Laboratory (technical verification facility) based in India, which will be responsible for building up Open RAN ecosystems with interoperability validation in a multi-vendor environment, as well as verifying product and system level performance and quality assurance.

With this approach, NEC will drive initiatives to promote openness of networks at full scale through an Open RAN ecosystem that includes its own advanced product portfolio as well as the leading-edge products of partner companies. NEC will further leverage the CoE to strengthen collaboration with partner companies to contribute to revitalizing the global Open RAN market and transforming CSPs into digital service providers.

"Our customers expect commercial grade quality and operational readiness to underpin the deployment of Open RAN technology in their networks," said Atsuo Kawamura, Executive Vice President and President of the Network Services Business Unit, NEC Corporation. "NEC will be a strategic partner to our customers in making that happen through our technology leadership, R&D capability as a RAN product vendor ourselves, and operational experience we have gained through generations of RAN deployment."