NEWSBYTE Ericsson, Telstra, and Intel claim to have made the first end-to-end 5G data call over a commercial network.
The call was made at Telstra’s 5G Innovation Centre on the Gold Coast of Australia, and was the first of its kind made over the 3.5GHz spectrum, according to the technology partners.
The breakthrough has “taken 5G out of the lab and into a real-world mobile network environment”, said the companies in an announcement this morning.
They used Telstra’s 5G NSA commercial network and licensed 3.5GHz commercial spectrum, Ericsson’s commercial 5G NR radio 6488 baseband and packet core for 5G EPC, a personal Telstra SIM card, and the Intel 5G Mobile Trial Platform.
A network connection to an Ericsson virtualised 5G packet core (vMME and vEPG), running on Ericsson’s NFVi, was made with the 5G slice connecting to the existing Telstra mobile network.
More 5G use cases planned
“Demonstrating this 5G data call, end to end, using my own personal SIM card on Telstra’s mobile network is the closest that any provider has come to making a ‘true’ 5G call in the real-world environment, and it marks another 5G first for Telstra,” said the company’s group managing director for networks, Mike Wright.
“We continue to work with global technology companies Ericsson and Intel, as well as global standards bodies, to advance the deployment of commercial 5G capability in Australia.”
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The announcement follows on from a lab-based data call made earlier in July by Ericsson and Intel, together with Telstra and other 5G service providers at the Ericsson Lab in Stockholm.
Intel Next Generation and Standards vice president and general manager, Asha Keddy, said her company would continue to collaborate on 5G tests and multiple use cases ahead of Telstra’s planned 5G commercial launch.
“We’re quickly moving towards 5G commercial reality,” added Fredrik Jejdling, head of Networks at Ericsson.
“Achieving the first commercial data call with our partners Telstra and Intel shows the progress we’ve made from testing the technology in a lab to a 5G commercial network environment. 5G is open for business and Ericsson is helping customers get it done.”