Ahead of MWC, Nokia updates ‘anyhaul’ portfolio
Over time, delivering on 5G use cases–enhanced mobile broadband, massive IoT and ultra reliable low latency communications, will require massive levels of network densification, particularly for deployments tapping millimeter wave spectrum. While this is certainly an exercise in RAN deployment, a significant investment in the transport network is also a requisite.
Ahead of Mobile World Congress Barcelona next week, infrastructure vendor Nokia announced enhancements to what it calls its “anyhaul” portfolio, which includes microwave, optical, IP and PON solutions.
For microwave, Nokia is pushing past 10 Gbps by tapping the E-Band and radio coordination to provide 20 Gbps backhaul for small cells. A new wave-division multiplexing module supports 10 Gbps and 25 Gbps and is designed for cloud RAN deployments where centralized, virtualized baseband functionality is connected via fronthaul to remote radio units. The company also announced a new interconnect router with 1, 10, 25 and 100 GE interfaces.
Nokia’s Vice President of Networks Marketing and Communications Phil Twist said the combination of anyhaul and the Future X architecture “equips our customers to take advantage of the promise of this next generation of network technology…The expertise and invaluable best practices we gain will further simplify and reduce risk for other operators as they move to 5G.”
New millimeter wave, mid-band small cells for indoor/outdoor deployments
Nokia also announced updates to its AirScale portfolio to include a new radio that supports the 28 GHz and 39 GHz bands, along with a new “pico remote radio head” that supports sub-6 GHz frequencies.
The new 5G AirScale mmWave Radio supports 28 GHz and 39 GHz bands to provide extreme high-capacity for the busiest traffic locations.
Mobile Experts Principal Analyst Kyung Mun said the additions “expands the operator’s toolkit as they deploy 5G into challenging places. Expanding with 5G is critical, as demand is growing faster than capacity in the LTE network. Nokia’s end-to-end capability puts the in position to tie things together–C-band, LAA, [millimeter wave], indoor, outdoor, for operators and private enterprises.”
