Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson has said that the arrival of its 5g radio network software in the fourth quarter of 2018 will provide multi-band support for global deployment and will have 10 times lower cost per gigabyte than 4G.
The 5G radio network software announced today 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. The total mobile data traffic per month in India is expected to grow 11 times – from 1.3Exabytes to 14Exabytes by 2023.
According to Ericsson, the monthly data usage per smartphone (GB/month) in India will increase five times from 3.9GB in 2017 to 18GB by 2023. The total mobile subscriptions in the country as per the report stood at 1.185 billion in the third quarter of 2017.
The radio offering is complemented with 5G Core commercial software optimised for 5G throughput, network capacity and scalability. Ericsson's Packet Core and Unified Data Management solutions will deliver enhancements throughout 2018 to efficiently support 5G services. These solutions can be further upgraded with new functionalities, as the 3GPP 5G standard evolves.
The 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) commercial software is based on the recently approved first 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standard. It also introduces 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.
‘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,’ said Fredrik Jejdling, Executive Vice President and Head of Business Area Networks, Ericsson.
Furthermore, the company unveiled new radio products supporting Massive MIMO technology. These products enable a smooth evolution from 4G to 5G and address the need for increased capacity, while simplifying use for wider adoption.
All installed base radios from the Ericsson Radio System delivered since 2015 will be 5G NR-capable by a remote software installation.
