Announcement comes after Nokia and T-Mobile partner to develop 5G Private Mobile Networks.
T-Mobile appears to be keeping its 5G options open.
The wireless carrier recently announced that Ericsson’s RAN and core equipment will power its 5G Advanced Network Solutions (5G ANS), “a suite of supercharged 5G network options for enterprise and government customers.” Typically, such an announcement would not be unusual, except the carrier announced a similar partnership with Ericsson’s rival Nokia, the day before, Enterprise IoT Insights reports.
The T-Mobile-Nokia announcement said the companies will work together to develop 5G Private Mobile Networks and Hybrid Mobile Networks and the solutions would be part of T-Mobile’s newly announced 5G Advanced Network Solutions. A similar occurrence happened in 2020 when Nokia and Ericsson both signed on with AT&T on private cellular for U.S. enterprises.
“Our mission is to help enterprise customers realize the value of real-time data in making decisions that help their businesses run faster, more efficiently, and stay ahead of the curve as 5G transforms the landscape,” said Mishka Dehghan, Senior Vice President, Strategy, Product, and Solutions Engineering, T-Mobile Business Group. “With T-Mobile’s leading 5G network, America’s largest and fastest, and excellent RAN and core equipment from partners like Ericsson, we’re showing — not telling — that 5G MEC is real, and helping customers improve their business today.”
“Nokia is an established leader in end-to-end private wireless network solutions with extensive experience deploying private networks for enterprise and industry verticals,” Dehghan said in T-Mobile’s Nokia announcement. “We have a longstanding trusted partnership with Nokia for our nationwide mobile network, and we are excited to work with Nokia to help enterprises and industry verticals realize the immediate benefits of 5G as they digitalize their businesses and improve operations.”
The more recent agreement will provide U.S. enterprise and government customers a pathway to Ericsson-made private cellular RAN and core solutions with T-Mobile. Similar to Nokia’s solution, Ericsson’s kit will be integrated into T-Mobile’s 5G ANS.
“Ericsson is excited about T-Mobile’s launch of 5G Advanced Network Solutions with a clear vision for customer experience and passion for delivering business value,” said Åsa Tamsons, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Area Technologies and New Businesses, Ericsson. “The T-Mobile and Ericsson partnership is making it possible to deliver clear results for enterprises that want to take their business wireless.”
T-Mobile’s partnering with Ericsson makes sense; the companies have been working together since 1G was around. The 5G ANS will combine Ericsson’s private 5G hardware and software with T-Mobile’s 5G assets. With Ericsson’s RAN and core powering T-Mobile’s suite of 5G Advanced Network Solutions, customers can get the latency, security, reliability, and speed they need for all the 5G era use cases like delivering increasingly real-life AR and VR experiences for training or field service.
