NEC Corporation recently unveiled its latest development, a new Radio Unit (RU) for 5G Sub-6GHz band base stations. This innovative device leverages Massive MIMO technology and is slated to succeed NEC’s current integrated antenna RU. The company plans to release the new unit in the first half of fiscal year 2026, following a round of performance evaluations and verification tests.
NEC has a solid reputation as a leader in Massive MIMO technology, having shipped over 50,000 units locally and internationally since 2020. This new model was developed in response to growing societal needs for increased communication traffic and greater energy efficiency. Promising significant improvements in uplink and downlink throughput, the new unit boasts a compact, lightweight and power-efficient design.
The new RU pairs seamlessly with NEC’s virtualized RAN (vRAN), giving it greater versatility in base station deployment locations. This flexibility contributes to a reduction in operators’ total costs. The unit also harnesses the power of MU-MIMO technology, which allows it to maintain stable, high-speed communication with multiple terminals simultaneously, even in crowded environments and at high speeds.
Results from simulations suggest the new device could boost uplink throughput by approximately 48% and downlink throughput by around 54%, compared to NEC’s current model. Moreover, a future software upgrade is expected to push uplink performance up to approximately 55%. Power consumption is also projected to reduce significantly, with estimates suggesting a drop of about 42% to 315W during normal conditions, and 30% to 630W or less during peak operation.
By incorporating compact units and a fanless design, the size and weight of the new device have also come down by roughly 23% and 33%, respectively. This compact and lightweight design could enable single person on-site installations, leading to cost decreases in installation labor.
The new RU, integrated with the NEC’s vRAN, will expand the fronthaul distance between the RU and the Distributed Unit (DU) from the current 30km to 40km, effectively controlling communication delays with software. The new model also comes equipped to dynamically assign RUs and optical transmission paths in response to fluctuating communication demands – helping optimize both capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operating expenses (OPEX).
NEC aims to collaborate with telecommunication carriers to conduct performance evaluations and verification tests for a product launch in Japan in the first half of fiscal year 2026. Internationally, the company hopes to compliantly meet standards and requirements for a worldwide launch planned for the second half of fiscal year 2026. The world’s largest mobile-related event, MWC Barcelona 2026, will serve as NEC’s platform to showcase the new device.
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