With mobile computing and field service operations now becoming inextribably linked many field service organisations will benefit greatly from the full 4G coverage and in the not so distant future 5G could possibly make interactions between the field and the back office lightning fast and seamless. It will, therefore, be of interest to US field service organisations that Ericsson announced last week that the company has increased its U.S. footprint by expanding its 4G partnership with Verizon to include new markets.

This extended partnership includes Ericsson Radio System 4G LTE equipment which, in addition to enabling the latest advances in 4G LTE capabilities, will provide a 5G-ready platform that will allow Verizon to rapidly transition sites to 5G when they deploy the service in those markets.

The new markets will be deployed using Ericsson’s latest baseband and dual-band radios, an optimized solution for widescale high-capacity deployment. The solution will be software upgradeable to 5G and will deliver CAT-M and NB-IoT for Massive Internet of Things use cases, as well as industry-leading network capacity.

Verizon and Ericsson have partnered closely to drive the evolution of LTE by using LTE-Advanced features, enhancing capacity and speed on the Verizon 4G LTE network. In 2017, Verizon and Ericsson used these latest technologies to hit several industry milestones, including:

• Achieved 953 Mbps by combining licensed and unlicensed bands with four-carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO and 256 QAM in a real-world network environment in Florida
• Exceeded 1 Gbps speeds on the Verizon 4G LTE network using three-carrier aggregation

Verizon and Ericsson reached another milestone in 4G LTE-Advanced technologies that will serve as a stepping stone to 5G by completing their first deployment of FDD (Frequency Division Duplexing) Massive MIMO (Multiple Input – Multiple Output) on Verizon’s wireless network in Irvine, CA.

Ed Chan, Senior Vice President of Technology, Strategy, and Planning, Verizon, says: “We continue to be committed to bringing the best network to Verizon customers. Working with Ericsson allows us to deploy the latest technologies on our 4G LTE-Advanced network will be an important component of our rapid transition to 5G.”

This 4G LTE deployment will improve both spectral and energy efficiency, increasing network capacity for current devices in the market.Yossi Cohen, Head of Customer Unit Verizon, Ericsson North America, says: “We continue to work closely with Verizon to expand the strategic partnership between our companies, enabling Verizon to unleash the latest in 4G technology and simultaneously prepare to launch 5G in these new markets.”

This 4G LTE deployment will improve both spectral and energy efficiency, increasing network capacity for current devices in the market. Further enhancements are expected as the 5G ecosystem evolves. For customers, the result will be faster speeds for using apps and uploading and downloading files.

To prepare for 5G, Ericsson has released its first commercial 5G RAN software, allowing operators to turn on 5G in commercial networks when ready. In addition, the installed base of Ericsson Radio System radios from 2015 onwards can run 5G NR technology with a simple remote software installation.

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