Nokia Announces 5G Software Update to Migrate 4G LTE Radios to 5G New Radio

Finnish vendor Nokia announced the availability of a software-based upgrade that will enable its 4G LTE radios to be migrated to 5G New Radio. These features will provide immediate support for approximately one million radios, reaching 3.1 million by the end of the year and over 5 million in 2021, the vendor said in a release. Nokia noted that it is helping to streamline the process of refarming LTE spectrum to 5G NR use by upgrading existing radio elements via software. The move will also support existing customers and the installed base by offering a seamless upgrade path to 5G/NR, the company added. Network equipment competitor Ericsson last week announced the commercial availability of its 5G New Radio software, and Samsung recently touted a new v5G vRAN solution that will work with open RAN interfaces. Nokia said that most of the 5G NR deployments to date have been performed with TDD centimeter wave and TDD millimeter wave deployment but also highlighted that the next big wave of 5G NR rollouts will be delivered by refarming existing FDD bands to 5G NR.