Ericsson expands 5G deal with China Mobile

Ericsson has announced it has inked another China Mobile deal, extending its 5G radio access network (RAN) partnership and charged with 5G core components for the second phase of the telco's nationwide new radio (NR) standalone rollout.

The 5G RAN partnership will extend to 17 provinces, and use the Ericsson Radio System solution.

Ericsson will also provide 5G core network equipment in two major regions, covering five provinces.

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"Ericsson and China Mobile have continuously worked together to develop, validate, and test 5G technologies and applications," the Swedish vendor said.

"This includes proactively developing products for China Mobile's 5G network deployment as well as customising 4G/5G compatible network solutions. The extended cooperation on 5G networks is a new milestone in a long partnership that spans nearly 30 years of mobile technology in China."

China Mobile last month awarded $5.2 billion-worth of contracts to Huawei, ZTE, and Ericsson for the build out of 232,143 5G base stations.

Huawei scored around 57.2% of the contract by the number of base stations; ZTE walked away with 28.7%; the only foreign vendor, Ericsson received 11.5%; and a smaller Chinese player has the remaining 2.6% of the contract, according to a Financial Times report.

Meanwhile, Ericsson also inked a deal with VodafoneZiggo to switch on the Dutch communications service provider's 5G.

Part of its GigaNet strategy, VodafoneZiggo is switching on its 5G network using the Ericsson Spectrum Sharing solution.

"We are introducing 5G via 'Ericsson Spectrum Sharing' in our GigaNet. We are making use of the latest innovative technology to apply 5G in existing frequency bands, using our existing antennas," VodafoneZiggo CEO Jeroen Hoencamp said.

"With the addition of 5G, we want to offer the Netherlands the best fixed and mobile digital infrastructure in the world which will result in a new form of connectedness."

High altitude 5G

China Mobile and Huawei on Friday announced bringing 5G to the summit of Mount Everest, with a completed 5G base station on the altitude of 6,500 meters. 

China Mobile's Everest dual Gigabit network sees Huawei install base stations in Mount Everest Base Camp at the attitude of 5,300 meters, the Transition Camp at 5,800 meters, and the Forward Camp at 6,500 meters. 

Huawei said its 5G AAU and SPN technologies are applied at these base stations, where network maintenance and optimisation are done by a dozen network specialists who station 24/7 in regions at altitudes of 5,300 meters and above.

Huawei said its "standalone plus non-standalone" (SA+NSA) mode connects five 5G base stations. Meanwhile, the "5G fast and huge-capacity connectivity" is achieved by Huawei's Massive MIMO technology.

At the attitude of 5,300 meters, the 5G download speed exceeded 1.66 Gbps, while the upload speed topped 215 Mbps.   

Updated Friday May 1, 2020 at 12:40pm AEST: Added high altitude 5G partnership.

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