NEC helps Sunrise boost mobile coverage for customers at home - Energy efficient, insulated homes are good for the environment, but can block mobile signals. NEC's solution helps Swiss operator Sunrise overcome this challenge -

*** For immediate use May 20, 2014



London, May 20, 2014 – NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) announced today that Sunrise Communications AG – the largest private telecommunications provider in Switzerland – is helping their residential customers boost their mobile reception at home by offering them NEC's market leading solution.

Due to the signal blocking properties of more energy efficiency, insulated walls, glass and lofts, some consumers are unable to get an adequate mobile signal at home. This issue is compounded among others by the fact that Swiss regulators have set a lower output threshold for mobile masts than elsewhere in Europe.

The announcement continues Sunrise's strong track record in making significant investments to enhance its network quality and customer service levels. Sunrise has successfully expanded its 3G/HSPA network with more than 98% coverage and launched its LTE network over the last year. The new initiative provides customers with the indoor box access points, which are the size of a Wi-Fi modem and self-install, supporting up to four mobile phones simultaneously with a propagation range of 20 meters.

Sunrise is also using NEC's gateway which sits between the operator's network core and the Internet Service Provider's broadband network and can manage tens of thousands of residential femtocells, in addition to enterprise-grade indoor small cells if required. It aggregates indoor small cell networks into a standardized lu interface connected into the mobile core network to streamline deployment and management activities for the operator.

Elmar Grasser, COO at Sunrise, said, "NEC's indoor box solution is ideally suited to helping Sunrise's customers boost their mobile signal at home so we can continue to deliver the best possible network experience across Switzerland."

Martin Guthrie, Head of Business Development in EMEA at NEC Corporation, said, "NEC has been a forerunner in the small cell market as the first company to provide award winning small cells in many parts of Europe, and indeed the world. The installed base of over a million units shows this technology works. It provides plug-and-play capability and delivers the reliability that consumers need, which also helps keep support costs as low as possible for the operator."

To date 28 operators in 17 countries use NEC's residential small cell solution and its E-RAN (Enterprise Radio Access Network) installed base is rapidly growing too. NEC is a board member of the Small Cell Forum and is active in other standardisation bodies, including the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) efforts to converge telecoms and internet services and protocols in advanced networks and the operator-led Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Forum.

NEC will be showcasing its portfolio of femtocell, enterprise and outdoor small cell solutions at the Small Cells World Summit 2014 in London on 10-12 June.

About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilize the company's experience and global resources, NEC's advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society.  For more information, visit NEC at http://www.nec.com.


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