  Network-controlled repeater (NCR) has been recently considered as a
study-item in 3GPP Release 18, and the discussions are continuing in a
work-item. In this paper, we introduce the concept of NCRs, as a possible
low-complexity device to support for network densification and compare the
performance of the NCRs with those achieved by reconfigurable intelligent
surfaces (RISs). The results are presented for the cases with different
beamforming methods and hardware impairment models of the RIS. Moreover, we
introduce the objectives of the 3GPP Release 18 NCR work-item and study the
effect of different parameters on the performance of NCR-assisted networks. As
we show, with a proper deployment, the presence of NCRs/RISs can improve the
network performance considerably.
