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Press Release -- January 3rd, 2023
Source: Ericsson
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Ericsson Year in Review 2022: July to December

Join us for the second part of our look back at Ericsson news in 2022 – July to December. The period included a major acquisition, the launch of 5G in India and increased momentum for Fixed Wireless Access. As the year closes, Ericsson is live with 5G in 61 countries, powering innovative consumer and enterprise applications across 137 unique 5G networks.

NEWS

DEC 29, 2022

#Ericsson2022

Note: In case you missed it, check out part one of our 2022 overview, Ericsson Year in Review 2022: January to June

July: Ericsson takes 5G into space

Ericsson rocketed into the second half of the year with an out of this world news story.

Together with Qualcomm and Thales, Ericsson would begin work to test and validate satellite-driven 5G non-terrestrial networks. The tests, which would take place in France, could prove crucial to providing complete global 5G coverage – including areas currently not served by current terrestrial networks.

Closer to home, Ericsson released its Connected Aviation report, exploring the power of private networks to transform aviation industries. This followed the Ericsson’s Imagine Possible Perspectives announcement, exploring likely major trends across education, entertainment, enterprise and sustainability towards 2030.

There was also historic news on the enterprise innovation front with confirmation that Ericsson had acquired Vonage. Ericsson said customers would benefit from Vonage’s Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solutions. The latter would later be named a European leader in Frost & Sullivan’s Innovation and Growth index.

In other innovation news, Ericsson announced two more network slicing milestones: A world-first demonstration of 5G multiple network slicing based on the Ericsson Local Packet Gateway, Dynamic Radio Resource Partitioning function, and dual-mode 5G Core together with Far EasTone; and the end-to-end demonstration of automated network slicing in 5G Standalone for consumer and enterprise use cases together with Telefónica Spain.

Ericsson 5G Core technology credentials were also underlined in Korea in July when SKT and Ericsson went live with a bare-metal cloud-native 5G network, using Ericsson 5G Core and Cloud Native Infrastructure (CNIS).

Rounding off the month, Ericsson announced a collaboration with Orange Spain that gave music fans at Madrid’s Mad Cool festival the possibility to swap the audience for the stage thanks to a 5G-powered virtual reality experience.

August: 5G focus shifts to India

Attention turned to India in August as Ericsson and Airtel announced the launch of the CSP’s first 5G services in the market.

The  significant announcement coincided with the release of a new report exploring the promise of 5G in India. The Ericsson ConsumerLab report said consumer readiness for 5G in India was very high, with more than 100 million users with 5G-ready smartphone in the region wishing to upgrade to a 5G subscription in 2023.

The report’s findings were discussed in a special Ericsson podcast on the Indian telecom market with Jasmeet Sethi, Head of Ericsson’s ConsumerLab. In another initiative, Ericsson also announced a partnership with Save the Children to provide 30 life-support ambulances to government health care facilities across the region.

Meanwhile, in North America, Ericsson took its Imagine Live roadshow on tour, taking in more than 60 customer sites across the United States and Canada. The events would allow Ericsson customers to experience first-hand the power of Ericsson 5G including Ericsson’s Radio System, Private 5G, and Operations Engine technologies. Similar events would take place worldwide over the coming months, including in in Aachen, Germany and Bangkok, Thailand.

In Stockholm, Ericsson employees and their families were among tens of thousands of people celebrating Stockholm Pride. Throughout Pride week, Ericsson held a series of events including a panel discussion on Ericsson employees’ experiences setting up an employee resource group for the LGBTIQA+ community.

In other news, network slicing made headlines yet again, this time with Ericsson and Google teaming up to demonstrate multiple network slices on a single Android 13 device that cater to both consumer and enterprise applications.

In Hungary, Ericsson teamed up with Vodafone to launch a new AI-based preemptive support service for private 5G networks in a live factory environment. And in China, Ericsson announced plans to deploy a nationwide 5G natural disaster management solution together with China Mobile and other partners.

September: High-impact sustainability solutions top the agenda

Climate action, digital inclusion and corporate responsibility was top of the agenda in September with a string of high-impact trials and breakthroughs.

This began with the product announcement of a new 40 percent more energy-efficiency, triple-band, tri-sector 5G radio – a radio that ‘could do the job of nine radios’.

In the US, Ericsson announced a new collaboration with the National Science Foundation’s AERPAW to develop 5G drone research for smart agriculture. By combining 5G with new untethered drone technologies, the collaboration will look to advance support for remote monitoring and assessment of fields, farms, and livestock.

5G rural connectivity also got a boost with the news that Ericsson and O2 Telefónica had made a breakthrough with 5G wireless backhaul for non-urban areas, demonstrating fiber-like speeds of up to 10 Gbps over a distance of more than 10 km. The milestone could prove decisive in bridging the rural connectivity divide, a key strategic area of both 5G revenue possibilities and digital inclusion efforts.

Ericsson teamed up with Nestlé and other partners in Brazil to deploy a private 5G network in Latin America, delivering a solid footing to transform Nestlé’s industrial operations in the region.

In Africa, Ericsson announced a new collaboration with the Smart Africa Digital Academy to provide policy makers and influencers across the Smart Africa Alliance with the digital knowledge needed to develop impactful digital skill development roadmaps and strategies across the continent. There was also cause for celebration as Ericsson celebrated 125 tears of success in Egypt in the presence of key ministers and industry players.

October: Racegoers at the Singapore Grand Prix get a slice of the action

October saw Ericsson release an array of reports ranging from climate action to enterprise resilience.

The 2022 edition of the Breaking the Energy Curve report served up a renewed take on how CSPs can achieve energy efficiency in a new global economic climate punctuated by the energy crisis and surging inflation. In a report on Connected Energy and Utilities, Ericsson also explored how utility sectors can harness cellular connectivity to mitigate the increasing complexities of meeting the needs of a rapidly evolving electric grid and consumer demand profiles.

Technology milestones came thick and fast in October as Ericsson announced another series of innovation firsts. This included a Europe-first deployment of Ericsson’s industry-leading Massive MIMO radio equipment together with EE in the UK, as well as a solution for cloud-based packet data processing developed together with Swisscom and NETSCOUT. The latter could provide a decisive contribution to network service assurance, analytics and cybersecurity of mission-critical services.

Enterprise resilience was also covered in October as Ericsson IndustryLab released a new edition of its Future of Enterprise report. The report said more enterprises are investing in a well-defined resilience strategy based on remote working, digitalization, and automation to prepare for future disruptive events such as natural disasters.

October also saw Ericsson release its largest ever consumer study to date. Launched by Ericsson ConsumerLab, the 5G: The Next Wave report revealed a host of consumer insights on 5G. This included the news that at least 510 million consumers across 37 markets say they are likely to take up 5G in 2023.

In Southeast Asia, motorsport fans at the Singapore Grand Prix were treated to an entirely different slice of the action as Singtel announced the deployment of Ericsson’s Dynamic Radio Resource Partitioning for end-to-end network slicing in a live 5G Standalone network. This gave racegoers seamless livestream experience of the race via a dedicated 5G network slice. In the same month, Singtel also announced that it had deployed Singapore’s most energy-efficient radio cell on its 5G network – the Ericsson AIR 3268.

The month closed with a look ahead to 6G. This included the announcement that Ericsson would extend its groundbreaking research into 6G-powered XR together with the University of Texas.

In Europe, the start of Hexa-X-II, the second phase of the European Commission’s (EC) flagship 6G research project was also announced. In the following month, Ericsson would also go on to announce a new 6G research initiative in the UK that will see the company invest tens of millions of GBP over the next ten years.

November: Increased forecast numbers for FWA through 2028

November saw Ericsson take a prominent seat on the geopolitical stage as the B20 summit got underway in Indonesia.  As co-chair of the B20 Digitalization Taskforce, Ericsson President and CEO Börje Ekholm, took the opportunity to highlight the value of universal connectivity, digital skills and enterprise digitalization his public address to G20 world leaders.

The latest figures from the November edition of the Mobility Report showed that global 5G subscriptions remain on track to top one billion by the end of 2022 despite macroeconomic challenges. New forecasts for global fixed wireless access (FWA) connections showed a faster growth rate than previously expected – with an estimated 300 million connections expected within six years.

FWA was identified as one of the key social benefits enabled by 5G in a new Ericsson-commissioned report published in November. Called the Future Value of Mobile in Emerging Markets, the report also found smart factories, freight and logistics, agriculture and healthcare use cases to be the other key drivers.

Ericsson’s dedicated networks (Private 5G networks) business reflected on growing momentem and recognition as more enterprises and industries globally embrace digitalization and next-generation connectivity.

Ericsson announced a new ten-year partnership to upgrade Australia’s National Broadband Network Co’s FWA network. The deal is expected to impact hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across Australia by the end of 2024.

While over at the company’s North American headquarters in Plano, Texas, Ericsson engineers also set a new data speed record of over 1Gbps on 5G CBRS spectrum in an indoor environment.

To close the month, Ericsson announced new 5G Core deals with TIM in Italy and Elisa in Estonia, supporting the CSPs’ upgrades to 5G Standalone.

December: Closing the year with a focus on speed and innovation

The year closed strongly with continued innovation milestones.

In Malaysia, Ericsson and DNB announced that they had set a new 1Gbps downlink speed in the mmWave range over a world record distance of 11.18km – paving the way for affordable high-speed Internet services across rural and suburban areas.

In Australia, Ericsson announced another download speed record of 7.3Gbps together with Telstra and Qualcomm. Meanwhile in Japan, Ericsson announced a regional breakthrough with KDDI and Sony by demonstrating simultaneous communication of multiple network slices with different QoS for end-to-end network slicing.

In other news, Verizon in the US announced plans to deploy the first Ericsson virtualized cell site (also referred to as Ericsson Cloud RAN), with support from Intel and RedHat.

December also saw Ericsson launch its Green Financing Framework, an instrument to enable financing of investments in energy efficient technologies, such as 4G, 5G and future 6G, and renewable energy.

Ericsson’s global leadership in climate performance and reporting was recognized by the independent non-profit CDP.

Meanwhile a new Ericsson CTO focus session together with Vonage Chief Strategy Officer, Vinod Lala, addressed Ericsson’s acquisition of the enterprise-focused cloud communications leader Vonage. Among other highlights, the session boiled down the biggest opportunities behind the emerging API-driven economy.

December also saw Ericsson’s Capital Markets Day in New York. Ericsson said it would continue to accelerate its drive into enterprise markets in 2023 – focusing on two strategic pillars: enterprise wireless solutions, and the global network platform.

December also saw proof that the future of sustainabe innovation is in safe hands with the conclusion of the 2022 Ericsson Innovation Awards. Team Benoit from the University of Indonesia scooped the top prize of EUR 25,000 for a pproposal that reuses plastic waste as part od a solar energy solution.

Selected July to December Ericsson news links

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