ERICSSON SAID MONDAY that it has increased its U.S. footprint by expanding its 4G partnership with Verizon to include new markets.
This extended partnership includes Ericsson Radio System 4G LTE equipment which, in addition to enabling the latest advances in 4G LTE capabilities, will provide a 5G-ready platform that will allow Verizon to rapidly transition sites to 5G when they deploy the service in those markets.
The new markets will be deployed using Ericsson’s latest baseband and dual band radios, an optimized solution for widescale high-capacity deployment. The solution will be software upgradeable to 5G and will deliver CAT-M and NB-IoT for Massive Internet of Things use cases, as well as industry-leading network capacity, reads the news release.
“We continue to work closely with Verizon to expand the strategic partnership between our companies, enabling Verizon to unleash the latest in 4G technology and simultaneously prepare to launch 5G in these new markets”, said Yossi Cohen, head of customer unit Verizon, Ericsson North America, in the release.
“Working with Ericsson allows us to deploy the latest technologies on our 4G LTE-Advanced network will be an important component of our rapid transition to 5G”, added Verizon SVP of technology, strategy, and planning Ed Chan.
To prepare for 5G, Ericsson has released its first commercial 5G RAN software, allowing operators to turn on 5G in commercial networks when ready. In addition, the installed base of Ericsson Radio System radios from 2015 onwards can run 5G NR technology with a simple remote software installation.
