Ericsson 5G rides on Shenyang subway, goes live in Denmark and launches in Spain

Sending more opportunities in the global 5G market, Ericsson has announced deployment and contract wins for its next-generation communications technology in Europe and Asia.

Specifically, Ericsson’s 5G indoor radio small cell solution, the Ericsson Radio Dot System, has been deployed by China Mobile to change public transportation experiences on an entire subway line for customers in the city of Shenyang, while Spain’s two largest cities are set to be the first to benefit from Orange 5G services powered by Ericsson.

In addition, Ericsson is claiming that its technology has allowed Danish communications service provider TDC to beat its nationwide 5G network roll-out timeline and launch commercial 5G across most of the country.

More than 900,000 passengers use the subway system in Shenyang, China every day. The Ericsson 5G Radio Dot deployment on Line 9 is helping China Mobile to meet the increasing data needs from its customers – particularly in high-quality uninterrupted video and streaming traffic – in subway stations as passengers wait for, or change, traveling connections.

Commuters and travellers on Shenyang’s subway Line 9 can access China Mobile 5G connectivity across all 22 stations on the line, powered by the Ericsson 5G Radio Dot. The Radio Dot System on Line 9 operates on various China Mobile frequencies, providing a downlink of 1Gbps and a maximum transmission rate of up to 1.4Gbps. This means that a 1GB high-definition film could be downloaded in 10 seconds.

Ericsson claims that the compact and deployable nature of the solution meant that was able to install more than 500 5G Radio Dots across the 22 stations in 20 days, 40 days ahead of schedule.

In Europe, the 5G deployment with Orange Spain builds on a partnership with Ericsson stretching back more than 20 years to the first generation of mobile technology. Following the communication service provider’s 7 September nationwide commercial 5G launch, Ericsson 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) and core products and solutions are powering 5G services in Madrid and Barcelona.

Operating on 3.6GHz spectrum, the 5G network in Madrid and Barcelona is powered by the Ericsson Radio System (Baseband 6648 and AIR 6488 antenna), delivering Massive MIMO, a key technology that significantly increases network capacity and spectral efficiency.

Ericsson has also supplied Orange Spain with a 5G evolved packet core to support 5G New Radio non-standalone (NSA), including control plane, user plane and policy network functions. These are all parts of the Ericsson Cloud Core portfolio.

The technology provider believes that enhanced mobile broadband and advanced gaming are expected to be among the first benefits to be enjoyed by Orange Spain’s customers through the increased speed and lower latency enabled by 5G.

Orange will also use the technology platform to enable innovation opportunities for Spain across business, industry, society and subscriber use and business cases. The initial 5G deployments in Madrid and Barcelona will be followed by other locations under a four-year partnership.

Also launched on 7 September was the TDC 5G net for which site deployment of Ericsson 5G products and solutions got underway in October 2019. Since then, almost 3,000 base station sites have been equipped with 5G technology throughout Denmark, amounting to more than 100 sites per week. TDC’s 5G launch on the 3.5GHz spectrum band includes the major Danish cities of Copenhagen, Odense, Aarhus and Helsingør, and is on target for close-to nationwide coverage by the end of 2020.

Ericsson’s 5G partnership with TDC Denmark includes Radio Access Network (RAN) products and solutions from Ericsson Radio System and core solutions from Ericsson’s 5G Core portfolio.

Commenting on the roll-out, Andreas Pfisterer, TDC NET CEO, said: “I am happy and proud that we have so quickly fulfilled our ambitions to open up for 5G coverage at a national level and provide access to particularly fast speeds in the centre of Copenhagen, Odense, Aarhus and Helsingør. The opening is important at a time when we more than ever need strong infrastructure to handle the consumption of mobile data, which is growing by up to 40% per year.”