News
Spanish incumbent strengthens cooperation via ZTE MoU; signs next-gen RAN agreement with Huawei.
Telefonica this week announced 5G development deals with ZTE and Huawei.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Telefonica and ZTE is geared towards encouraging input from different industries in the areas of wireless communication, IoT, network virtualisation architectures and cloud.
"Telefonica continues advancing in its role as a key player in the development of 5G technologies, where we have been actively contributing to relevant international projects, industry associations and standardisation bodies. We are very pleased to have reached this agreement with ZTE to cooperate on the next generation of mobile communications technology," said Telefonica CTO Enrique Blanco, in a statement on Thursday.
Meanwhile, in a separate announcement earlier this week, Telefonica signed a 5G and next-generation RAN joint innovation pact with ZTE’s rival Huawei.
The agreement covers cloud RAN technology and the development of 5G radio and core architecture, as well as massive multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) projects.
The deal builds on an MoU between the two companies signed in November 2015.
"We are very pleased to have reached this further agreement with Huawei to keep cooperating on 5G and the next generation RAN. The collaboration with Huawei in this area allows [the] sharing [of] the true requirements of a global operator as Telefonica, and helping to focus on providing the right solutions on this advanced network at the right time," Blanco said.
