Ericsson and Telstra, on Sunday announce their agreement to join forces and collaborate on the development of 5G standards and technologies. Telstra is a leading mobile broadband operator whose market success is underpinned by its superior customer mobile experience. An early adopter of LTE (launched September 2011), Telstra works with its network partner Ericsson to deliver ongoing network innovation, most recently with LTE-Advanced.
 
Building on the successful partnership between Telstra and Ericsson, the 5G collaboration will ensure that evolving industry standards and Ericsson's 5G solutions reflect the needs of advanced mobile network operators.
 
"While a 5G world is some time away, it is important to begin key foundational work now to help us to better understand this emerging new technology and what it can do for customers across Australia and the world. For Telstra, 5G will be an evolution of our world leading 4G network, and we are keen to work together with our network partner Ericsson to drive the standards, test new concepts and research the new architectures," said Mike Wright, Group Managing Director Networks, Telstra.
 
The collaboration activities will commence in the second quarter of 2015 and continue to evolve as the standards mature and 5G becomes a commercial network reality around the 2020 timeframe.
 
"Delivering the benefits of 5G requires an end-to-end approach that includes devices, RAN and core networks. The 5G collaboration with Telstra will deepen our understanding of latest innovations, architectures and use cases important to 5G. It also presents an opportunity to understand how Machine Type Communications (MTC) a key component of 5G can transform  many industries including utilities, mining, logistics and agriculture to mention but a few," said Haykan Eriksson, Head of Ericsson Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.
 
"Ericsson has worked closely with Telstra to trial and introduce many advanced radio and core technologies such as LTE Advanced and LTE Broadcast. Our collaboration and partnership on 5G is another key area of innovation."
 
Areas of collaboration include the following:
 
• 3GPP Standards: Telstra and Ericsson standards teams will work closely together to ensure the evolving standards capture the requirements of advanced operators such as Telstra.

• 5G Radio Test Bed: Telstra staff will join Ericsson in their advanced technology facilities in Sweden later this year to test and analyze the latest innovations from Ericsson's world leading researchers.

• 5G Field Trial: Telstra will run a 5G field trial in Australia which will include opportunities for Telstra's industry partners and customers to experience the potential of 5G.

• MTC: Telstra and Ericsson will run a PoC (Proof of Concept) for MTC (Machine Type Communications, 3GPP Release 13) with Telstra and selected industry partners. MTC is a key enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT) where current device limitations such as range, battery life and size can be significantly improved to allow almost anything to be connected to the network.

• Core Network Evolution: For 5G to be an end-to-end network reality, the mobile core network will need to evolve to support the new services. To facilitate understanding in this area, Telstra and Ericsson will collaborate to investigate and demonstrate key capabilities for a 5G ready evolved core network using the Ericsson Cloud System, Router 6000 series, Evolved Packet Core, SDN controller, IMS and other core elements.