NEC Corporation acquires Blue Danube Systems to enhance its 5G product portfolio

Blue Danube Systems announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by NEC Corporation. The deal is expected to close around March of 2022, pending regulatory approval.

Blue Danube has successfully demonstrated its Coherent Massive MIMO 5G beamforming technology in numerous trials around the world, delivering up to 3X capacity increases with first generation software in commercial mobile networks using existing mobile phones. Deploying Coherent Massive MIMO together with autonomous AI/ML beam optimization software, mobile network operators can economically improve overall multi-site performance in both FDD and TDD bands.

Blue Danube’s technology has been demonstrated not only to improve network capacity, but also to greatly improve coverage, for instance avoiding new sites at higher frequency bands and cost-effectively providing 5G user experience to rural communities. Blue Danube’s products have been in commercial service for over 5 years, are compatible with both 4G and 5G baseband processing and have proven to be reliable over a wide range of deployment scenarios and environmental conditions.

Mark Pinto, CEO of Blue Danube, said, “We are excited about joining the NEC team that is an Open RAN leader and recognized for its end-to-end Open 5G solutions and system integration capabilities. Becoming part of NEC enables Blue Danube to expand our 5G product offerings, and together we will bring ever more powerful hardware and software products based on O-RAN specifications to customers worldwide.”