Ericsson has launched the Cradlepoint R2400, an in-vehicle 5G router it says is designed for public safety, mass transit and fleet operations that need resilient connectivity in motion.
Ericsson said the platform combines Dual-SIM/Dual Standby (DSDS) failover, centimeter-level positioning, Wi-Fi 7 and built-in edge compute for applications such as live video, connected vehicles and autonomous systems.
DSDS keeps two carrier profiles ready so the router can switch networks without swapping hardware or rebooting the connection. The company said the R2400 and an extensible RC1250 modem accessory will be available in Q2 2026.
Cradlepoint is part of Ericsson’s enterprise wireless portfolio. Ericsson completed its acquisition of Cradlepoint in 2020, positioning it as an expansion into wireless edge and enterprise 4G/5G WAN solutions.
What Ericsson claims is new in failover and positioning
Ericsson’s headline claim is a Dual-SIM/Dual Standby (DSDS) design “on a single modem” that it says can switch carriers about 10× faster than previous approaches, aiming to keep voice, video and data sessions running when a primary connection degrades.
The company also said the unit supports up to five simultaneous cellular connections plus multiple low-Earth-orbit satellite connections for additional resiliency in low-coverage areas.
For location, Ericsson said the router pairs Real-Time Kinematics (RTK) with dead-reckoning, improving positioning from “1–3 meters” to about “~1 cm,” which it said enables lane-level vehicle identification and more precise tracking of vehicles, personnel, assets and drones.
RTK is a GNSS technique that uses correction data to improve GPS-class positioning accuracy. Dead-reckoning estimates position using onboard sensors when satellite signals drop.
Ericsson stated that the DSDS design is intended to reduce service interruptions during carrier switching. The combination of RTK and dead-reckoning is designed to maintain positioning accuracy in environments where satellite signals are typically degraded, such as tunnels or urban areas.
Ericsson did not publish test methodology or third-party validation for the “10×” and “~1 cm” claims in the launch announcement.
Why edge compute is showing up in vehicle routers
Ericsson described the R2400 as a shift toward processing data at the vehicle edge rather than transmitting it to a central data center for analysis. The company cited Verizon’s 2025 Public Safety Communications Survey, which found 46% of respondents expect to use AI or “smart solutions” daily within five years.
According to a National Academies report on automated applications for infrastructure owner-operator fleets, 84% of responding agencies planned to use or evaluate some type of autonomous transit bus within three to five years.
Against that backdrop, Ericsson said the R2400 delivers “2.5× more on-device compute” than prior generations for local AI inferencing and containerized applications, plus “2× more throughput” for its NetCloud SASE security and SD-WAN services.
Containerized apps are packaged software workloads that run consistently across systems. SASE combines networking and security controls delivered as a cloud-managed service.
Ericsson stated the R2400 is designed to support local AI inferencing at the edge, allowing for real-time processing of sensor data and video without the latency associated with cloud backhaul. Inferencing is running an AI model on the device to generate outputs without sending data to the cloud.
Ericsson positioned that as a way to support workloads such as live video and on-scene analytics without pushing every decision back to a central cloud.
NetCloud’s “agentic AI” claim and the management angle
Ericsson also used the launch to broaden the story from hardware to operations. It said NetCloud offers what it described as the industry’s “first agentic AI virtual expert optimized for enterprise 5G networking,” paired with AIOps dashboards intended to surface anomalies before they affect service.
The company described its Edge AI implementation as part of a move toward autonomous networking, using the onboard compute to run AIOps that detect and remediate connectivity issues locally.
An IDC analyst quote in Ericsson’s announcement framed vehicles as an operational “hub” as agencies digitize field workflows. Jason Leigh, senior research manager for 5G and mobile services at IDC, said “vehicles are increasingly THE critical hub for information, coordination, and incident response,” adding that the shift “necessitates in-vehicle connectivity that is more reliable, adaptable, and better suited to real-time, data-driven tasks.”
In fleet deployments, the router serves as a central point for connectivity policy, security controls, and telemetry. The NetCloud platform acts as the management plane for fleet connectivity, integrating hardware refreshes with software and modem upgrades.
Ericsson did not disclose pricing, licensing structure or total cost-of-ownership comparisons in the announcement, so agencies will have to model whether “pay-as-you-grow” capacity and modular upgrades reduce long-run costs or simply move spend from capex refreshes to recurring software and modem upgrades.
Competitive context in rugged mobile routing
Ericsson is not alone in targeting public safety and transit with rugged 5G routers. Semtech’s Sierra Wireless markets the AirLink XR90 as a vehicle router for transit and public safety with dual 5G options and GNSS with dead-reckoning.
Cisco markets ruggedized Catalyst IR1800 routers for mobile and fixed assets with modularity and security features.
Ericsson’s differentiation, based on its own announcement, is packaging DSDS failover speed claims, RTK-grade positioning and edge compute under one product line and tying it tightly to NetCloud operations and security tooling.
Procurement of the system may be influenced by its integration with existing public safety networks and the standard agency practice of purchasing connectivity and devices as separate line items.
Operational requirements and compatibility
Ericsson said the R2400 is compatible with public safety networks and “new network slicing services” and leverages 5G standalone Release 17. It did not specify which carriers, public safety networks or slicing implementations are required to realize the advertised capabilities.
Network slicing is a 5G capability that can allocate a reserved, policy-defined slice of network resources for specific applications.