Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5 billion deal for 5G

Ericsson is going to be providing T-Mobile with its latest 5G new radio hardware and 3GPP for a cool $3.5 billion.

As it moves from LTE Advanced networks to 5G, T-Mobile said it will use the Ericsson portfolio of products to expand its existing LTE capacity while readying the network for the 5G jump.

Included in the deal are Ericsson’s digital services like dynamic orchestration, business support systems and Ericsson cloud core, which will be used to help T-Mobile roll out 5G services to its customers.

“We have recently decided to increase our investments in the US to be closer to our leading customers and better support them with their accelerated 5G deployments; thereby bringing 5G to life for consumers and enterprises across the country,” Niklas Heuveldop, the president and head of Ericsson North America, said in a statement. “This agreement marks a major milestone for both companies. We are excited about our partnership with T-Mobile, supporting them to strengthen, expand and speed up the deployment of their nationwide 5G network.”

As Mobile World Congress Americas gears up there will be several of these announcements coming down the pike. Already Nokia and Sprint announced they’d be unveiling a demonstration of 5G new radio connections and the Nokia Massive MIMO (multiple input multiple output) technology.

New 5G networking technology promises to deliver high speeds and high-reliability, energy-efficient service in areas of high-device density with extremely low latency.

The partnership with Ericsson means that T-Mobile’s already installed base of Ericsson Radio System radios will be able to run 5G NR with a remote software installation.