Japan's NTT Docomo and NEC join hands on new telecom gear

BARCELONA, Spain -- Japan's largest telecom operator NTT Docomo is forming a joint venture with NEC to grow its 5G open RAN networking gear business for overseas markets, particularly Southeast Asia and the Middle East, in an effort to break the logtime dominance of major players such as Huawei and Ericsson.

NTT Docomo and NEC have been strong promoters of the so-called Open Radio Access Network protocol. Open RAN is a collaborative effort among various equipment makers, chipmakers, server makers and telecom operators to establish common standards for base stations. The aim is to crack open the market by allowing carriers to mix and match components from different vendors instead of being locked into one supplier, such as Huawei, Ericsson or Nokia. Breaking down these walls could create opportunities for new players to compete and potentially offer more affordable and flexible solutions.