Ericsson Boosts Radio Software Operations from 4G to 5G

Ericsson has finalised its 5Greadiness for operators by enhancing its 5G Platform with new solutions for the radio and core network. The network company has launched 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) commercial software based on the recently approved first 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standard.

It also introduced a new category of radio products called Street Macro – a new site type that addresses the need of operators to grow in cities with limited available radio locations.

To capture growth opportunities presented by new 5G use cases, Ericsson expanded its 5G Core System offering with new capabilities to support 5G NR and also enhances its Distributed Cloud solution.

Ericsson introduced its 5G Platform in February 2017 with additions made in September the same year. It comprises the 5G core, radio, and transport portfolios together with OSS/ BSS, network services and security. Executive Vice President and Head of Business Area Networks at Ericsson, Fredrik Jejdling, said: “Operators who want to be early with 5G now have the essential pieces for launching 5G networks already this year. 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.” CTO, TIM, Giovanni Ferigo, said: “Ericsson is an important enabler of our 5G in-field innovation activities that span several cities in Italy. Together, last December – marking an Italian record - we activated a 5G NR cell in the mmW frequencies in the city of Torino, reaching speeds above 20Gbps. We are looking forward to testing Ericsson’s new solutions that will contribute to address the wide variety of use cases we are working on.”

The Ericsson’s 5G radio network software provides multi-band support for global deployment. It will allow operators to use new frequency spec- trum as it becomes available. The 5G radio network software complements Ericsson’s already launched baseband and 5G radios. Operators can simply activate their 5G networks and take the first steps with commercial 5G capabilities and new applications leveraging advanced mobile broadband services.

This will cater efficiently for growing data traffic and enable access to multimedia content, such as 4K/8K video streaming and virtual reality/ augmented reality. According to Ericsson’s new economic study of enhanced mobile broadband, evolution to 5G will enable 10 times lower cost per gigabyte than current 4G.