In early 2022, it was announced that Rosenberger spun off the antenna and wireless division under the Prose brand. Telecom Review Asia Pacific speaks with Denis Ng, Marketing & Infrastructure Solutions Director of Prose on the brand’s value proposition and offering.
Can you explain the relevance and purpose behind the new brand identity Prose?
Prose is a spin-off from the Rosenberger Group, a specialist in connectivity and wireless solutions, and one of the leaders in the telecommunications industry. With wireless technologies evolving rapidly, transiting from 4G, 5G and then to 6G in the near future, the industry has witnessed vast progress and advancements. Today, customers demand unique solutions to meet newer requirements. With this, we feel that it is timely for Prose to operate as a separate entity, to become leaner, more agile, and closer to global customers to better address the fast-changing needs of different markets.
Can you tell us about Prose’s unique solutions portfolio?
To cater to the specialized needs in a 5G era, the strategic focus of Prose is on 5 key areas to deliver connectivity and wireless solutions, namely, base station antennas, microwave antennas, indoor and outdoor coverage solutions, open RAN sub-systems, and RF accessories.
Our product portfolio maintains Rosenberger’s tradition of innovation and technological expertise. We are a company with more than 3,500 people providing global operators and service providers with innovative wireless technologies. Currently, Prose has the largest team in the Asia Pacific region, but has a fast-growing portfolio in other parts of the world as well. In this region, we have R&D centers in China, Australia and India to expand our focus on base station antennas and open RAN solutions, and provide tailored solutions to meet the future demands of customers.
How does your portfolio address the latest wireless technology trends in the APAC region?
5G requires new base station antennas capable of delivering its promise of high bandwidth and low latency. In the area of base station antennas, we work with a strategic partner to supply operators with massive MIMO antennas as a comprehensive solution to address the new requirements in a 5G era. We also offer multi-RAT 4G+5G integrated antennas for other scenarios.
In terms of indoor solutions, most locations around the world are equipped with passive infrastructure that covers 4G bands up to 2,700 MHz. This infrastructure is not able to support the new 3500 MHz band allocated to 5G, and also 4x4 MIMO to improve 5G throughput. Should we ride 5G on the existing infrastructure, the 5G promise of high bandwidth and low latency will not be delivered. To overcome this, we use an active fiber optic distribution system to connect a base unit to multiple active remote units to reduce the high losses of RF cables. This solution is multi-operator, multi-technology and multi-RAT, allowing up to 4 operators to share infrastructure to reduce the capex costs of indoor investments and to enable 5G coverage indoors in a fast and timely manner.
Meanwhile, with open RAN, we are moving 5G away from proprietary systems and working with other partners. As we develop both radio and antenna solutions, we work collaboratively with our partners to produce high-power solutions with massive MIMO antenna integrated as a single open RAN radio unit. We also foresee the wireless industry connecting Open RAN to indoor solutions and are developing a low-power solution to connect Open RAN with indoor active solutions – this is also the unique selling point of our open RAN platform. If the radio setup can be reduced to a low-power unit, operators can benefit from significant capex and opex cost savings.
The wireless communication market is set to keep expanding over the next few years with service providers, neutral hosts, and private networks all targeting different growing market segments. While Prose is preparing unique solutions for these markets in 4G and 5G infrastructure products, the company is on the technology forefront and well positioned to provide connectivity and wireless solutions particularly in massive MIMO, base station antennas, indoor active distributed antenna systems, and open RAN sub-systems to address both outdoor and indoor coverage requirements.
