Ericsson to boost Vodafone 5G deployment

Vodafone plans to bring greater 5G capacity over the UK with the help of Ericsson’s single antenna technology.

The partnership between the UK and Swedish telecoms giants will see Ericsson’s Air3218, which combines radio unit and antenna in a single unit, transmit mobile data over Vodafone’s current frequencies with no extra antenna.

The telcos claim that this using a single antenna footprint together with Massive MIMO technology, will leverage the larger bandwidth of mid-band spectrum to increase 5G capacity and deliver enhanced mobile broadband experiences.

It has also been suggested that combining the technologies into a single unit will also help improve network efficiency and reduce deployment complexity.

Commenting, head of radio and performance at Vodafone UK, Ker Anderson said: “5G is the UK’s digital future, but we should never underestimate how difficult it is to deliver a future-proofed network at scale across the length and breadth of the UK.”

“Working in partnership with Ericsson, we are constantly exploring new ways to accelerate this transformation, and this is another example of where innovation is delivered through collaboration,” Anderson added.

5G is looking to be a great enabler of digital transformation for businesses, which will allow for the deployment of IoT sensors in factories, better performance of virtual reality, and even artificial intelligence.

In May, Ericsson and fellow Nordic operator Telia launched the Baltic’s first private 5G network in one of Telia’s supply-chain sites to enable monitoring and management of devices through wireless sensors.