Swedish equipment maker partners with Softbank and Turkcell on road to 5G
Telecom powerhouse Ericsson is aggressively laying the groundwork for eventual “5G” deployments via partnerships with Japanese-based SoftBank and Turkish carrier Turkcell.
With SoftBank, Ericsson is working on field trials of 5G in Tokyo, specifically use case and deployment scenarios designed to let researchers evaluate the performance and potential of 5G tech components. The two companies are focused on the interactions between mobile devices and the radio access network.
“5G will be an integral component of this movement toward the networked society,” said Yossi Cohen, Ericsson Japan president and representative director. “I’m excited about the new technologies that we are exploring in the joint trial collaboration with SoftBank. With this new collaboration we will continue to strengthen our partnership with them.”
With Turkcell, Ericsson has entered into a memorandum of understanding around 5G research initiatives.
“We aim to develop a joint understanding of 5G use cases, requirements and deployment scenarios, and evaluate the performance of key technology components,” said Turkcell CEO Kaan Terzioglu.
“We are expecting 5G adoption to begin in the near future, hence we are focusing on the ways in which the industry will adopt the 5G standard globally to deliver capabilities and services beyond the mainstream 4G offerings,” added Ericsson CEO and President Hans Vestberg. “With operator cooperation like this, we bring research into the live test networks which give us valuable insights.”
RCR Wireless News recently observed a demonstration of Ericsson’s 5G testbed device in the company’s Plano, Texas, facility.
The drivable device uses a 200 megahertz-wide channel in the 13 GHz band and is currently capable of 5.7 gigabit-per-second downlink speeds on a TDD channel.
