NEC Corporation has acquired privately held Blue Danube Systems, Inc., a U.S.-based provider of CBRS/4G/5G RAN products and AI/ML-based software solutions in a deal that is expected to close in March. Blue Danube helps mobile operators address the challenge of 5G network build outs and spectrum optimization.
As an end-to-end Open RAN 5G provider, NEC purchased Blue Danube to expand its customer support capability and assets in North America, as well as adding to the breadth of its Open RAN solutions portfolio.
Blue Danube’s portfolio of Coherent Massive MIMO products includes single and multi-band 5G beamforming antennas for FDD and TDD frequencies from 1.7 GHz to 2.6 GHz. The products feature programmable, agile beams that focus spectrum power dynamically toward traffic hotspots and un- or underserved areas. The field applications include extending wide area coverage, vertical beamforming and time-of-day beam steering,
Last fall, Blue Danube announced that its 3D beamforming radio systems had been used to provide the first broadband communications from a high-altitude stratosphere platform to cellular users on the ground in the sky above New Mexico.
In 2019, Blue Danube launched its first Coherent Massive MIMO solution for TDD networks, which delivered a 2.5 times capacity increase in heavily loaded existing LTE cell sites.
A year before that, Blue Danube announced it had expanded the commercial deployment of its FDD massive MIMO solution to multiple clustered cell sites, improving total capacity for directly adjoining sectors on existing LTE networks.
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
Reader Interactions