STOCKHOLM — Ericsson announced Thursday its dynamic spectrum sharing solution, allowing for both 4G and 5G to be deployed in the same band and on the same radio through a software upgrade, is now commercially available.
Ericsson Spectrum Sharing (ESS) dynamically allocates spectrum based on user demand on a 1 millisecond basis, the news release says. ESS makes more efficient use of spectrum, allowing communications service providers to quickly and cost-effectively launch 5G on existing bands on a nationwide scale, Ericsson says.
According to Ericsson’s news release, more than 80% of service providers currently testing ESS plan to deploy it in the coming 12 months. There was no specific mention of Rogers, which is a long-time Ericsson customer and is using the Swedish tech firm’s gear for 5G, specifically in the news release.
The company says Swisscom, Australia’s Telstra, Qatar’s Ooredoo, and Poland’s Play are among the global service providers upgrading their networks with Ericsson Spectrum Sharing.
“For the first time, our customers do not have to re-farm spectrum before deploying a new ‘G’ and can quickly get 5G on the same footprint as they have with 4G today,” said Fredrik Jejdling, executive vice-president and head of networks for Ericsson. “In the next 12 months, more than 80% of the commercial 5G networks we support will use our spectrum sharing solution to achieve broad 5G coverage.”
According to the news release, ESS software can run on any of the five million 5G-ready radios Ericsson has delivered since 2015. Ericsson says it has been collaborating with ecosystem chipset partners including Qualcomm Technologies, on advancing dynamic spectrum sharing using mobile devices powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 and 765 mobile platforms with Snapdragon 5G modem-RF systems, as well as MediaTek (Dimensity 1000) and key device makers such as Oppo, Sony, Xiaomi, LG, vivo and WNC (Wistron NeWeb Corp.) to scale the solution globally.
