AT&T said it will use Ericsson to deploy recently acquired C-band spectrum and the launch of 5G standalone (SA).
The move will help AT&T work toward its 5G network goals to bring 5G to more consumers, businesses and first responders in industries such as sports and venues, entertainment, travel and transportation, business transformation and public safety.
Non-standalone 5G technology, which has been the bulk of the 5G networks deployed worldwide, uses 4G infrastructure already in place and piggybacks on the 5G signal through this equipment. Because 4G infrastructure has been deployed globally, the non-standalone equipment is more plentiful than standalone 5G equipment currently installed worldwide. However, standalone infrastructure is growing in deployment.
Standalone 5G uses new infrastructure put in place specifically to run 5G networks allowing smart devices and other potential use cases to take advantage of the high download speed, high bandwidth and low latency that the technology affords.
AT&T will use Ericsson’ radio system portfolio, which includes the Advanced Antenna System, Advanced RAN Coordination and Carrier Aggregation technologies. These deployments will help support future network enhancements such as Cloud RAN that will allow communications service providers to increase delivery of services, scalability of network and increased flexibility.
Ericsson’s Cloud RAN is a software solution to handle compute functionality in RAN and complements existing technologies in the RAN domain and allows for the adoption of 5G innovation, AT&T said.
