Ericsson and Swisscom have deployed 5G Radio Dots in the Swiss service provider’s live 5G commercial network and simultaneously made the first 5G data call in Europe between two offices over the 5G Radio Dot System during a Joint Mobile Day event in Bern, Switzerland.
The call, made on July 1 between Ericsson’s office in central Bern and Swisscom’s office in the nearby town of Liebefeld, is the latest tech milestone for the Swiss service provider’s 5G network rollout since it became the first in Europe to switch on a commercial 5G network – fully powered by Ericsson – in April this year.
Having initially taken its 5G network live in 102 locations in 54 towns, Swisscom plans to expand quickly in major cities, tourist areas and across the countryside, achieving 90% nationwide population coverage by the end of 2019 with the help of Ericsson Spectrum Sharing.
Small and sleek, Ericsson 5G Radio Dot is easy to install. Daniel Staub, Head of Joint Mobile Group at Swisscom, says Ericsson’s indoor small cell system is the perfect complement to strengthen Swisscom’s USP best net and provide the best experience for our customers.
“The 5G Radio Dot System offers us a high performing and reliable network in indoor areas. We continue to expand our 5G network across Switzerland to deliver premium connectivity across the country, Ericsson’s innovative 5G Radio Dot is another important building block,” said Staub.
The 5G Radio Dot is an instrumental tool for service providers as they progress with their 5G network rollouts, as it enables superior indoor experiences by boosting throughput to over 2Gbit/s.
Martin Buerki, Head of Ericsson Switzerland, commented: “Our 5G Radio Dot allows service providers to reuse existing indoor network infrastructure as they upgrade from 4G. Building on the existing Radio Dot System architecture, one can upgrade and complement existing networks quickly and efficiently. We’re looking forward to more milestones with Swisscom as it continues to rollout its 5G network with us.”
The deployment of the 5G Radio Dot System is the latest step in a long and successful partnership between Ericsson and Swisscom in working towards commercial 5G services, which began when Swisscom selected Ericsson as its strategic partner for Gigabit LTE and 5G in November 2017. Since then, the two companies accomplished Europe’s first end-to-end, multivendor 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) data call on 3.5 GHz band in September 2018, and Swisscom selected Ericsson for a number of its solutions including end-to-end 5G transport, Ericsson Expert Analytics, and Ericsson Security Manager.
