Verizon has selected Ericsson to supply 4G equipment in additional markets across the U.S. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The installations include Ericsson Radio System 4G LTE equipment, which is a 5G-ready platform that will allow Verizon to rapidly transition sites to 5G when they deploy the service in those markets. Specifically, Ericsson said the new markets will be deployed using its latest baseband and dual band radios, an optimized solution for widescale high-capacity deployment. The solution will be software upgradeable to 5G and will deliver CAT-M and NB-IoT for Massive Internet of Things use cases, as well as industry-leading network capacity.
Verizon and Ericsson cited a number of recent joint milestones:
- Achieved 953 Mbps by combining licensed and unlicensed bands with four-carrier aggregation, 4×4 MIMO and 256 QAM in a real-world network environment in Florida
- Exceeded 1 Gbps speeds on the Verizon 4G LTE network using three-carrier aggregation
- Verizon and Ericsson reached another milestone in 4G LTE-Advanced technologies that will serve as a stepping stone to 5G by completing their first deployment of FDD (Frequency Division Duplexing) Massive MIMO (Multiple Input – Multiple Output) on Verizon’s wireless network in Irvine, CA.
Yossi Cohen, Head of Customer Unit Verizon, Ericsson North America, says: “We continue to work closely with Verizon to expand the strategic partnership between our companies, enabling Verizon to unleash the latest in 4G technology and simultaneously prepare to launch 5G in these new markets.”