Ericsson Enhances 5G Platform For Operators

Ericsson has completed its 5G platform aimed at mobile operators, which it says will allow them to launch 5G services from the fourth quarter of 2018.

The  5G Platform has new features for the radio and core network, despite the fact that 5G standards are still in development.

5G Platform

In order to provide 5G ready platform for operators, Ericsson has announced its “5G Radio Access Network (RAN) commercial software, based on the recently approved first 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standard.”

This has been aided by the introduction of a Street Macro radio, which can be installed by mobile operators in cities where there is limited available radio locations.

And besides Ericsson’s expanded 5G Core System offering (with support for 5G NR), the firm is also offering operators its Distributed Cloud solution.

It should be remembered that Ericsson first introduced its 5G Platform in February 2017, and it includes the 5G core, radio, and transport portfolios, together with OSS/BSS, network services and security.

“Operators who want to be early with 5G now have the essential pieces for launching 5G networks already this year,” said Fredrik Jejdling, executive VP and head of business area networks at Ericsson. “With our expanded platform, they will get more efficient networks as well as opportunities to create new revenues from emerging consumer and industrial use cases.”

Ericsson says that its 5G radio network software will be available in the fourth quarter, and that it will allow operators to use new frequency spectrum as it becomes available.

“The 5G radio network software announced today complements Ericsson’s already launched baseband and 5G radios,” the company said. “Operators can simply activate their 5G networks and take the first steps with commercial 5G capabilities and new applications leveraging advanced mobile broadband services.”

5G Development

5G is still an emerging technology at the moment, as the standard is still in development.

That said, lots of companies (such as Ericsson for example), have started creating 5G products and field testing them.

The big pushers of 5G technologies at the moment are Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung, and BT, all of whom have some form of 5G technology on offer.

In December last year Vodafone successfully carried out a test of prototype devices using pre-standard 5G technology in central London.

The test was carried out in conjunction with Ericsson and with academics at King’s College London.

EE and Huawei have also tested 5G and they were able to achieve speeds of 2.8Gbps, as well as sub-5ms latency, using 64×64 MIMO and 100MHz worth of 3.5GHz test spectrum.

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