MWC 2016: Ericsson And Qualcomm Enter 5G Testing Partnership

Ericsson and Qualcomm will work together on early interoperability testing for 5G technology, and expect a “timely” commercial roll out of next generation networks.

The two firms collaborated on LTE and at Mobile World Congress (MWC) confirmed they would once again join forces to develop technology and other initiatives with mobile operators.

Unified effort

“As we did in both 3G and 4G, we are excited about collaborating with leading operators and industry stakeholders such as Ericsson in the development of a unified, more capable 5G platform” said Matt Grob, chief technology officer, Qualcomm.

“Now that the vision and interest for 5G are well established, it is time to focus on the technical and engineering work required to support operator trials and commercial network launches.”

The two will work together to reach the first release of 3GPP 5G standards, supporting the 3GPP consortium with data from joint trials. Ericsson thinks that operators will be able to better understand the capabilities of 5G by trialing interoperable prototypes provided by the two companies with the intent of speeding up the rollout of standards-compliant, commercial 5G infrastructure and devices.

Ulf Ewaldsson, chief technical officer at Ericsson, said: “With many operators accelerating the 5G timelines, it is important for leading members in the ecosystem to work together to advance standards-based solutions that benefit consumers and society.

“Ericsson has a longstanding history of technical collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies and we look forward to continuing this as the companies lead the way towards 5G.”

Earlier this week, Qualcomm said that it does not expect a full commercial rollout of 5G until 2020. But Laurent Fournier, Qualcomm’s senior director for business development, said that Qualcomm has already started trials with key network operators, which include Verizon, to roll out 5G.

Take our mobile operators quiz here!