Nokia announced the availability of a software-based upgrade that will enable its 4G radios to be migrated to 5G/NR. These features provide immediate support for approximately 1 million radios and should reach 3.1 million by the end of the year and over 5 million in 2021. Radios shipped from end-2009 onwards can get this upgrade. More than 80 pct. of the Nokia Flexi and AirScale radio installed base is covered by this announcement.
By upgrading existing radio elements via software, Nokia is helping to streamline the process of refarming 4G spectrum into 5G/NR. Most of the 5G/NR deployments to date have been performed with TDD cmWave and TDD mmWave deployment but the next big wave of 5G/NR rollouts will be delivered by refarming existing FDD bands to 5G/NR, the company said. TDD spectrum benefits from enlarged coverage and capacity when combined with already deployed FDD network infrastructure and spectrum bands via TDD/FDD Carrier Aggregation.
The ability to upgrade 4G radios via a software update will significantly smooth out the deployment of 5G/NR FDD, avoiding costly and disruptive site visits, the vendor noted. Nokia has 359 4G customers with deployed FDD RF units, most of which are possible to upgrade. This will provide a new and smoother way for operators to build 5G/NR coverage in lower bands via spectrum refarming.
Nokia also has Dynamic Spectrum Sharing live networks covering 2G/GSM-3G/WCDMA-4G/LTE and recently introduced DSS for 4G/LTE-5G/NR. This functionality completes a DSS platform covering all access technologies and making the radio frequency refarming to 5G/NR a simple and efficient process. In a typical case, DSS will be introduced to one or few 4G bands which are then combined with carrier aggregation between other bands running pure 4G or 5G/NR.
