Canadian telecommunications provider Bell Canada has selected Ericsson 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) technology to support its nationwide 5G mobile and fixed wireless access deployment, the vendor said in a release.
Ericsson Radio System products and solutions will be rolled out as Bell Canada expands its 5G coverage – including an expected boost following the auction 3.5 GHz spectrum by the Canadian government later this year.
“Ericsson plays an important role in enabling Bell’s award-winning LTE network and we’re pleased to grow our partnership into 5G mobile and fixed wireless technology,” said Stephen Howe, CTO at Bell Canada. “5G’s high-capacity and near-instant connections will enable next-generation applications like mobile 4K video and immersive augmented reality, connected vehicles and industrial IoT automation on a massive scale, and our plan is to deliver the benefits of the 5G wireless revolution to cities and rural locations alike.”
Bell Canada had decided to put on hold the commercial launch of its 5G network due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company’s CEO Mirko Bibic recently said during a conference call with investors.
“We are ready with our initial 5G network, but frankly we don’t think that it’s the right time right now to officially launch it for marketing purposes. I just don’t think that customers are paying attention to this right now and that’s not what is top of mind for our customer base. They have other priorities, understandably,” Bibic said.
“As the economy opens up, we’ll have more news on when we will launch our initial 5G services,” he added.
Bell Canada started the construction of its 5G network this year, using equipment from Finnish vendor Nokia.
Ericsson also announced a new 5G deal with Telefonica Deutschland. As part of the agreement, the German carrier, which operates under the O2 brand in the country, will implement a completely independent 5G core network with full cloud compatibility in its infrastructure by 2021, using Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core.
“With our cloud compatible 5G core network, we are entering a new technology era,” said Mallik Rao, Chief Technology & Information Officer of Telefónica Deutschland. “Gigabit data rates, real-time communication and massive IoT – these visions are now becoming reality. We have a clear plan for the further development of our network infrastructure towards a standalone 5G network that can handle the massive data streams of the future and open up new digital business models for all our customers. In doing so, we are relying on the latest network technologies that the market has to offer.”
“The partnership between Telefónica and Ericsson in the 5G core network underlines that all three German mobile network operators rely on us in different parts of their networks. With this, we are pleased to prove our ambition of technology leadership when it comes to equipping 5G networks,” said Stefan Koetz, head of customer unit Western Europe at Ericsson.
Telefónica Deutschland had previously said that its 5G network deployment will include radio equipment from Huawei and Nokia.
With these two new agreements, Ericsson now has 93 commercial 5G contracts with unique communications service providers globally, of which 50 are publicly announced 5G deals. Ericsson currently has 40 live 5G networks in 22 countries.
