Ericsson upping 5G core R&D, T-Mobile turning up soon
With sub-6 GHz 5G deployments in a mature markets scaling rapidly–that’s to say nothing of a mixed bag of consumer interest–operators are now looking to bring the full 5G feature set to market through a transition from non-standalone to standalone 5G. Standalone 5G refers to a shiny, new, cloud-native core capable of offering up network slices, a key part of offering differentiated enterprise services and the new revenue that comes with that.
On the company’s most recent earnings call, Ericsson President and CEO Börje Ekholm noted “strong demand for our cloud-native and 5G core portfolio” with “significant Tier 1 customers.” He expects to see revenue off those deals next year and said the vendor was going to up its R&D spend. “In response to this strong market momentum, we decided to increase our R&D investments,” Eckholm said, adding that the long-term value created from those investments will ultimately outweigh the short-term financial impacts on financial margins.
Ericsson recently announced its working with Japanese operator SoftBank to provide a “cloud-native, dual-mode” 5G core. Dual-mode refers to simultaneous support for evolved packet core and cloud-native core; the idea is to allow for a smooth migration of services from 4G and non-standalone 5G to full-on standalone 5G.
Ericsson is also providing equipment, including cloud-native core, for a standalone network set up on the University of Coventry’s campus in the U.K. President and Head of Europe and Latin America Arun Bansal said in a statement, “Standalone networks are central to the promise of 5G to reimagine society, the economy and industries. We’re proud of what we’ve been able to achieve in partnership with Vodafone. This launch is another example of Ericsson’s 5G technology leadership.”
In the U.S., T-Mobile and Verizon have both recently discussed their standalone core plans.
T-Mobile US plans to activate a standalone 5G core this quarter and is meanwhile expanding its use of both 2.5 GHz and 600 MHz for service in a number of U.S. cities, as the carrier continues its integration of the Sprint network.
In a blog post updating the carrier’s recent 5G-related progress, President of Technology Neville Ray said that T-Mobile US is “hard at work getting ready to light up standalone 5G this quarter” and highlighted its recent standalone 5G data testing. Having SA 5G, he said, “will expand our coverage and bring with it improved latency and faster uploads. It will also pave the way for applications that require real-time responses and massive connectivity such as mobile augmented and virtual reality, cloud gaming, smart factories and meters and even connected vehicles.”
Verizon is venturing into standalone too, having recently completed its first data session with an end-to-end 5G system including the carrier’s new 5G SA core. Verizon said that it plans to start moving traffic onto the new core in the second half of this year, with full commercialization in 2021. The carrier described the new core as having a containerized design, and said that it’s being built using a “webscale software architecture based on advanced IP-based technologies.”
Verizon added that a “virtualized and containerized 5G core” is an “important step to realizing the full potential of innovative and advanced 5G solutions.”
“The 5G standalone core is critical for unleashing the most advanced benefits of 5G technology including remarkable levels of programmability to manage the advanced solutions and exponential traffic that 5G will bring,” said Bill Stone, VP of planning for Verizon, in a statement. “By building this 5G core with cloud-native containerized architecture, we will be able to achieve new levels of operational automation, flexibility and adaptability.”
