Ericsson snags 5-year C-band, 5G deal with AT&T

The two companies have already partnered on 5G and in recent months conducted multiple trials in the mid-band frequencies. Verizon previously named Ericsson as a C-band vendor as part of a massive $8.3 billion 5G deal.To get more ericsson latest news, you can visit shine news official website.

Now the Swedish vendor has a new 5-year network deal with AT&T that includes 5G radio access network (RAN) technologies such as advanced antenna systems, advanced RAN coordination and carrier aggregation, as well as Cloud RAN down the line.AT&T is preparing to deploy the first tranche of C-band spectrum, of which it acquired 40-megahertz, that’s expected to be ready for use in December. Mid-band is often called the sweet spot for providing both a mix of coverage and capacity for 5G services. Initially, AT&T’s targeting existing sites to deploy the higher-capacity spectrum.

Under the deal, Ericsson is supporting AT&T’s plan to cover 70-75 million people with 5G using C-band (in the 3.7 GHz range) by the end of 2022 and expansion to 200 million people by the end of 2023. Financial terms were not disclosed. AT&T has said expects to invest between $6 billion and $8 billion for C-band rollouts over the next few years.

Ericsson called out its Fronthaul Gateway as enabling a centralized RAN architecture, allowing for more efficient transport by converting the fronthaul interface to packet eCPRI (enhanced Common Public Radio Interface).Ericsson’s advanced antenna system (AAS) helps provide extended coverage and performance gains, with an antenna array closely integrated with hardware and software. It uses multi-antenna techniques like beamforming and MIMO.

The 5G carrier aggregation and Advanced RAN coordination product targets more than C-band, with the aim of optimizing coverage, capacity and latency of both mid-band and high-band deployments.

“As we continue to expand our nationwide 5G network, Ericsson’s technology offerings and 5G expertise will assist with our network evolution,” said Scott Mair, president of AT&T Network Engineering and Operations, in a statement. “This latest agreement provides the pathway for us to deploy Ericsson’s next-generation centralized RAN architecture, enabled by Fronthaul Gateway, with the ability to support future network enhancements, like the evolution to Cloud RAN.”
AT&T also plans to use Ericsson’s Cloud Link software, according to an Ericsson spokesperson. Cloud Link was introduced in June, and it supports use of carrier aggregation and other technologies across both disaggregated and legacy infrastructure.

When it comes to new network architectures, Dell’Oro Group VP Stefan Pongratz said that in general, operators are exploring three high-level tracks right now. That includes C-RAN (centralized RAN), vRAN (virtualized RAN) and open RAN (O-RAN) “to address supply and demand related drivers that continue to characterize this market.”

“While the overlap is more limited among these architectures now in the initial phase, we do expect this overlap ratio to evolve over time,” Pongratz told Fierce. “And clearly some operators are more aggressive than others when it comes to implementing various architectures.”

Ericsson first introed Cloud RAN in 2020, disaggregating hardware and software as the vendor started to take steps that aligned it closer to rivals (like Nokia and Samsung) which were already moving toward O-RAN-compliant gear.