Ericsson hits record millimetre wave speeds, claims dominance in 5G

Swedish giant Ericsson has achieved record download speeds of 4.3 Gbps in their Stockholm R&D labs.

 

This new record puts them ahead of the previous record of 3.67 Gbps claimed by Huawei in 2019, and takes 5G closer to the theoretical 7.5 Gbps limit achievable by current chipsets.

 

The direct comparison of Ericsson and Huawei’s records is not entirely fair, however; Ericsson achieved their numbers by aggregating millimeter wave frequency bands, using a total of 800 Mhz of spectrum, while Huawei used 100 Mhz of C-band spectrum on a live 5G network in Switzerland. 

 

In short, Huawei’s recorded speeds seem more reproducible in a real-world environment at this point in time.

 

Nonetheless, the record is a milestone for Ericsson, who used it as a springboard to assert their dominance in 5G over rival Huawei at Thursday’s pre-MWC briefing in London, which went ahead despite the cancellation of MWC on Wednesday night. 

 

“We’ve deployed 24 networks across the world. We’ve been first to deploy networks across four continents,” said executive vice president Fredrik Jejdling. “So for us, it’s hard to see anyone ahead of us currently. We believe we have a competitive portfolio that is on a par or ahead of our competitors.”

 

Ericsson currently leads Huawei and Nokia in the number of commercial 5G contracts, with 79 compared to 63 and 50, respectively. 

 

The company announced that the further largescale rollout of 5G was a top priority for the company, with the main limitation in Europe being the availability of spectrum. 

 

Ericsson’s 5G equipment currently connects 13 million subscribers and the company has ambitious hopes to increase this to 100 million by 2020.

 

The Ericsson executives briefly touched upon the elephant in the room at the briefing – the cancellation of MWC itself – reiterating that their decision to withdraw was a painful but necessary one based on the health priorities of their staff and the estimated 10,000 visitors to their exhibitors stand.

 

The announcements which they had preplanned for the event will instead be delivered as part of their existing ‘Unboxed Roadshow’ schedule.