India, October 01, 2022:- HFCL Limited (HFCL), a leading telecom equipment manufacturer and technology provider today announced the launch of 5G 8T8R Macro Radio Unit (RU), the first product from its 5G product family. HFCL’s 5G 8T8R Macro RU is a next generation RU that has a compact form factor, improved energy efficiency, supports digital beamforming and zero touch provisioning.
5G will accelerate the adoption of virtualization and cloud native technologies. However, most of the current implementations of virtual RAN (vRAN) are based on proprietary technologies. HFCL’s 5G 8T8R Macro RU combines the power of vRAN and O-RAN based open standards. Unlike traditional RAN where all components of RAN must come from the same vendor, HFCL’s 5G 8T8R Macro RU can integrate with any vendor’s virtual baseband unit (vBBU) that is compliant with O-RAN fronthaul specification.
HFCL’s 5G 8T8R Macro RU is 3GPP Release 15 and 16 compliant. It supports n78 frequency band (3.3 – 3.67 GHz) with 8T8R MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) configuration. It is lightweight and compact in form factor and supports natural convection air cooling. It will aid operators in providing better 5G coverage and address capacity requirements in urban, suburban and rural areas. It is modular in design and can be easily customized to support any Sub-6 GHz frequency band to address the global markets. It supports multiple mounting options and can be easily deployed on poles, rooftops, and walls. Security by design is built into the 5G 8T8R Macro RU and it supports secured boot, digitally signed applications, and is hardened against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Commenting on this product launch, Mr. Mahendra Nahata, MD, HFCL said, “HFCL is proud to bring the world class 5G 8T8R Macro RU product that has been designed and developed completely by our indigenous R&D team to address India and global markets. It also supports needs of rural mobile broadband in the country. Reliable and ubiquitous 5G networks has a critical role to play in making India a digital economy.”
With a distinct set of features designed for improved energy efficiency, HFCL’s 8T8R Macro RU also supports digital beamforming with excellent steering capability for improved customer experience. It supports improved radio resource management and provides seamless interoperability with any industry leading AI/ML powered RAN Intelligent Controllers (RIC). In addition, HFCL’s 5G 8T8R Macro RU supports zero touch provisioning & closed-loop automation and enables faster time-to-market for launch of new 5G services.
