Ericsson unveils solutions for seamless 4G to 5G transition

Ericsson on Thursday announced a host of technology innovations for the Indian market to enable a smooth evolution from 4G to 5G.

The company introduced 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. It also launched new radio products that support Massive MIMO technology.

All installed base of radios from the Ericsson Radio System delivered since 2015 will be 5G NR-capable by a remote software installation. Ericsson recently completed its 5G platform with the launch of 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) commercial software, based on the recently approved first 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standard. The 5G radio network software 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.

"Our studies in fact indicate that Enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) will be the first large-scale global 5G use case, driven by a need for more efficient networks and better user experience," said Nitin Bansal, Managing Director of Ericsson India.

The announcement comes on the sidelines of Ericsson's annual technology roadshow in India, where the company recreated a "Do Zone" to showcase the highlights from Mobile World Congress 2018. Over 20 state of the art proof points were displayed at the 'Do Zone' to give a glimpse of the future that will be enabled by 5G.