They are carrying out their work at Fujitsu’s US labs and NEC’s lab in the UK, with funding from New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) of Japan.
NEC and Fujitsu said are building an environment and developing technologies to assess and verify the interoperability of different vendors’ equipment and the impact of such connections on the entire network.
They said: “The two companies will collaborate with carriers, equipment vendors, and governments in various countries and regions, aiming to significantly reduce the time required to conduct interoperability testing for base station equipment.”
They plan also to work with NEDO, which last year had an annual budget of US$1.44 billion, “to support the global adoption and development of equipment that conforms to O-RAN specifications through this project, thereby contributing to the stimulation and growth of the open 5G market”.
NEDO chairman Hiroaki Ishizuka (pictured), said: “NEDO is striving to further strengthen its management capability to promote challenging research and development activities based on technology strategies. Through these efforts, as well as striving to maximize the research and development outcomes, this is expected to enable a quick response to innovation that is taking place around the world and produce practical applications that utilize research and development results as much as possible.”
Fujitsu and NEC said their focus is to “accelerate the global reach of base station equipment that conforms to O-RAN specifications and contribute to stimulating growth and innovation in the open 5G market”. Both companies are in the list of vendors to Deutsche Telekom’s first open RAN service, in the north German town of Neubrandenburg.
NEDO funds a range of research and development activities, from hydrogen power to drones and next-generation transport. It also invests in the internet of things (IoT) and robots.
