Ericsson has bagged a $3.5 billion 5G equipment deal from T-Mobile US, the third largest telecom operator in US.
Earlier, Nokia has also announced a similar deal with the same amount with T-Mobile US. Telecom equipment makers such as Huawei, ZTE and Samsung are also looking for similar telecom networking deals from mobile operators.
T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom of Germany, said in February it was working with the Sweden-based Ericsson and rival network vendor Nokia of Finland to build out 5G networks in 30 US cities during 2018.
Ericsson increased its market share of the mobile networks market in the second quarter of 2018, partly due to faster network upgrades in the North American, where it ranks as the biggest supplier ahead of Nokia.
Ericsson today said it will provide the latest 5G New Radio (NR) hardware and software compliant with 3GPP standards to T-Mobile.
The contract also encompasses Ericsson’s digital services solutions, including dynamic orchestration, business support systems (BSS) and Ericsson Cloud Core.
“With this new Ericsson agreement we’re laying the groundwork for 5G – and with Sprint we can supercharge the 5G revolution,” Neville Ray, chief technology officer of T-Mobile, said in a statement.
Niklas Heuveldop, head of Ericsson North America, said the Sweden-based telecom network maker recently decided to increase its investments in the US to support operators to speed up 5G deployments.
Ericsson said it will supply hardware and software from its 5G Platform including its Ericsson Radio System, across all spectrum bands available to T-Mobile. T-Mobile can also use its existing Ericsson Radio System radios to run 5G NR technology with remote software installation.
