When deciding on its 5G transmission network partners, Ericsson chose Juniper and ECI instead of the original partners Cisco and Ciena. Ericsson also believes that Juniper and ECI's optical network technology will improve its product portfolio, while giving it end-to-end capabilities to meet customer needs and compete with major competitors.
Ericsson's main competitors in the mobile network market include Huawei and Nokia. Ericsson will use Juniper's edge and core packet transmission technologies (MX and PTX series platforms) to support the connection between wireless cellular base stations and the operator's core network. Ericsson will continue to provide its Router 6000 and microwave products as a backhaul solution for 5G transmission network deployment.
Juniper Networks’ security products will also be incorporated into Ericsson’s solutions to protect customers’ mobile network security and as part of Ericsson’s end-to-end solutions to protect existing and new 5G networks.
The cooperation with ECI Telecom will enable Ericsson to enhance its strength in metro optical fiber transmission products. With the cooperation with ECI, Ericsson will be able to provide new and enhanced optical fiber transmission solutions for operators and critical infrastructure customers.
However, in the eyes of many observers, the biggest question is why Ericsson did not choose the two existing partners of Cisco and Ciena, and what Ericsson's latest partnership means to these two companies.
When it comes to Cisco, the main obstacle seems to be the awkward overlap between the company and Ericsson's own product portfolio. Although Ericsson has been looking for potential partners in the core network and edge, "radio near" IP technology (Router 6000 and microwave systems) is still the priority of Ericsson's internal development. Unfortunately, Cisco has its own "radio near" product portfolio and core network and edge capabilities, while Juniper focuses on the latter. "If you cooperate with Juniper, there will be no overlap, which can form a good cooperation." Nishant Batra, head of Ericsson's global network products, said.
This will inevitably cast a greater shadow over the partnership between Ericsson and Cisco. Market observers generally believe that the cooperation between the two parties is a frustrating failure. However, Batra insisted that the cooperative relationship between Ericsson and Cisco still exists. "The purpose of cooperating with Cisco is to find alternative IP solutions and its advantages in the enterprise and service provider segments." Nishant Batra said. "This intention still exists, but in terms of IP backhaul, we all realized that this is not an ideal situation, so we chose to part ways."
What about Ciena? Ericsson announced in 2014 that it had reached a "global strategic agreement" with Ciena, when the plan was to jointly develop transmission solutions. This seems to make Ciena the perfect optical communications partner for 5G, but Ericsson has chosen to work with ECI this time.
"Ciena's products are more suitable for the core of the optical network, and we are looking for partners in the metropolitan area network, ECI is a very suitable choice." Nishant Batra said. He once again emphasized that the cooperation between Ericsson and Ciena still exists and is developing "good business" in some areas.
For Ericsson’s critics, this partnership will further highlight Ericsson’s products compared to Huawei and Nokia, two companies claiming to provide operators with a more comprehensive portfolio of fixed, mobile, and IP technologies needed to deploy 5G. Combination of shortcomings. However, Ericsson has launched a new product in the radio access network (RAN) and announced cooperation with highly respected professional companies in other fields. If these alliances can develop as desired, it may be transformed into a market advantage.
And importantly, Ericsson pointed out that Juniper and ECI's transmission solutions are fully interoperable with Ericsson's transmission product portfolio, and will be managed by Ericsson's management and orchestration solutions. This will simplify the 5G management and control process in the wireless, transmission and core network fields as a whole. The management and orchestration solution will also provide integrated SDN control for Ericsson, Juniper, and ECI nodes to achieve automated network control for applications such as network slicing and traffic optimization to ensure the best user experience.
"These partnerships have helped fill up our shortcomings." Nishant Batra said. "We did not make a comprehensive commitment in the IP field, but divided it into radio near, core and edge, among which we will use our own products for the radio near part."
Although there was no mention of the network fronthaul in yesterday's announcement, Nishant Batra said that Ericsson will continue to sell its own optical network fronthaul products in the mobile market. He explained that some of them are based on technologies acquired by Ericsson in 2005 when it acquired Marconi. Optical fiber is now considered to be the best way to solve the fronthaul.
However, Ericsson has other prequel options. In the fixed access market, Ericsson has been cooperating with Calix since 2012, when Ericsson announced the sale of its GPON assets to this American optical access equipment manufacturer. Nishant Batra said that the cooperation between Ericsson and Calix continues. In fact, Ericsson and Calix are working together to provide Verizon with NG-PON2 systems.
In addition to working with new 5G partners, Ericsson has also added new features to its Ericsson Radio System.
Ericsson Radio System, the "5G-ready" RAN platform, now accounts for the majority of Ericsson’s wireless product shipments. This platform will enable operators to better control RAN functions in the future and enable them to efficiently use spectrum resources.
"The product portfolio we are launching now faces the needs of 2019 and 2020, and will enable operators to deploy 5G on a larger scale at thousands of sites." Nishant Batra said. In addition, Ericsson said its newly launched RAN Compute function will make it easier for operators to deploy cloud or virtualized RAN systems, so that baseband functions can be run as software programs on common off-the-shelf devices.
Nishant Batra said that through Ericsson's new spectrum sharing software Ericsson Spectrum Sharing, operator customers will be able to dynamically allocate spectrum for specific network technologies within milliseconds. "The market demand for this technology has never been greater," he said. "This is the first time I have seen in the past few years, 6-7 leading operators have expressed their desire to be the first to launch (this technology)."
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