Ericsson Software Set to Ease Shift to Standalone 5G

According to a recent announcement from Ericsson, communications service providers can now tap the potential of 5G New Radio (NR) technology thanks to the commercial availability of the company’s Standalone 5G NR software for 5G mid- and low bands. The software became globally available to all customers in June.

The software is designed to help communications service providers operate 5G NR without the need for signaling support from an underlying LTE network and thereby help add 5G NR to existing 4G sites or deploy 5G independently in new areas such as factories.

“Over the past year, we have worked closely with many customers to successfully deploy Non-standalone 5G,” said Per Narvinger, Head of Product Area Networks, Ericsson. “These 5G networks have enabled higher data speeds and new use cases. Now we are taking the next step in the evolution of 5G by making generally available the software to support Standalone 5G NR networks. These standalone capabilities will enable even more use cases and applications.”

T-Mobile and Telstra are long-standing Ericsson partners that reportedly have trialed the Ericsson Standalone 5G NR software on their commercial networks.

“Standalone 5G is the next important step for wireless connectivity, with the potential to unleash a whole new range of future transformative applications,” said Abdul Saad, CTO, T-Mobile. “We’re proud to be leading the charge alongside Ericsson and other technology innovators and look forward to bringing standalone 5G to our customers later this year.”

With the general availability of Standalone 5G NR software on low and mid bands, Ericsson now offers an end-to-end Standalone 5G solution, according to the release.