Wistron NeWeb Corp. (WNC), a leading provider of communications solutions, and EdgeQ Inc, a leader in 5G wireless infrastructure, have partnered to introduce the first software-defined, multi-mode 4G/5G small cell at this year’s Mobile World Congress Barcelona. The collaboration between the two companies enables a new paradigm for telco operators and enterprise customers looking for a singular design that converges 4G and 5G networks, spans indoor and outdoor environments, scales across multiple antennas and offers field-upgradable software within a compact unit for frictionless deployment.

WNC’s newest small cell (LAS1) offers a converged 4G and 5G network that is field upgradable through software with a modular RF antenna design. Supporting power-over-Ethernet, the all-in-one small cell integrates compute, connectivity and cloud functionalities while achieving up to 5 Gbps throughput. Samples of the LAS1 are now available.

“WNC has implemented the world’s first dual radio access technology small cell product based on EdgeQ’s solution,” said Stephen Sek, chief of technology, U.S. and EU Technology Centers, WNC. “With our proprietary 2T2R & 4T4R antenna design and an extremely power-efficient EIRP of up to 30 dBm, we are well-positioned to support the next generation of applications requiring over 1 Gbps of user throughput.”

The partnership between WNC and EdgeQ validates how open innovation at the silicon level drives new performance dimensions at breakthrough economics. The highly scalable, flexibly adaptive EdgeQ platform targets both gNB and O-RAN applications in a completely softwarized manner. By compacting 4G, 5G and compute into a single-chip, EdgeQ enables an all-in-one small cell with fully integrated radio unit, distributed unit and central unit; L1, L2, L3 stacks and fully inclusive O-RAN splits. The scalable architecture packs unprecedented throughput performance across a large set of concurrent users, but all within a compact power envelope enabling power-over-Ethernet.

“EdgeQ has imagined a highly flexible, softwarized 5G platform that is cohesive, low-power and remarkably disruptive. Together with WNC, we are introducing to the industry an elegant design that can fulfill the many dimensions of 5G, all the while driving towards new economics and operating simplicity like Wi-Fi,” said Adil Kidwai, head of product management at EdgeQ.

The WNC LAS1 small cell and EdgeQ’s Base Station-on-a-Chip can be seen at Hall 2, 2A4MR.