NEC Corporation has been recognised as a visionary by Gartner Magic Quadrant for 5G network infrastructure for communications service providers.

The Magic Quadrant is designed to help communications service providers identify and evaluate network equipment providers for their 5G network infrastructure, including RAN, core network, transport, and network infrastructure services.

NEC has been a pioneer and strong industry leader in open, software defined, cloud-native networks from the early adoption of SDN, including the world’s first commercial deployment of OpenFlow, as well as the recent commercial launch of its Open RAN radio units and cloud-native containerized 5G core network. This is in addition to its subsidiary Netcracker’s industry leadership in 5G orchestration, operations automation and monetisation.

NEC provides testing, integration and implementation services, together with its market leading products and solutions for 5G network infrastructure, including Open RAN, core and Netcracker’s cloud-native Digital BSS/OSS solutions.

In addition, NEC partners with Rakuten Mobile to jointly develop 5G core to be made available on Rakuten Communications Platform, a fully virtualized, cloud-native solution to support standalone (SA) 5G.

NEC is committed to the fostering and growth of an open 5G ecosystem through its Open RAN Center of Excellence and is actively collaborating with the O-RAN ALLIANCE (O-RAN), Telecom Infra Project (TIP), European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI), Open Networking Foundation (ONF), 3GPP and the Open RAN Policy Coalition (ORPC).

NEC Corporation executive vice president Atsuo Kawamura says: “NEC is proud to be recognised as a Visionary in 5G network infrastructure for communications service providers by Gartner. The promise of 5G is its infinite scalability, performance and innovations fostered by an open multi-vendor ecosystem. We believe, in order to boost digital transformation as a whole, Open RAN, disaggregated core, strong solution integration capabilities and the willingness to engage with world-class partners are imperative to succeed in 5G.”

“NEC has demonstrated remarkable growth and has proven a leader in the 5G ecosystem with their contributions to Open RAN and open networks including their capabilities and expertise in Radio Unit equipment, System Integration and Orchestration. TIP sees NEC as a key player in the Open RAN ecosystem, with ongoing products in Operator trials and significant contributions as a System Integrator,” says David Hutton, chief engineer of TIP.

Peter Jarich, head of GSMA Intelligence, adds: “Open RAN is rapidly gaining momentum, driven by an interest in open interfaces and open technology architectures. Working with operators around the world, however, we also know that an interest in diversified supply chains is central to Open RAN strategies. To this end, solutions from vendors like NEC will be welcomed.”