Ericsson’s PR efforts currently seem devoted to promoting its managed services division and a pan-European fixed line gig with Liberty Global presents some low-hanging fruit.

Before we get too carried away it should be stressed this is the renewal of an existing partnership between the two, but it at least indicates Ericsson hasn’t been screwing things up. The new contract includes the consolidation of network service delivery in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland and Germany, which seems to be more countries than the previous 2016 deal.

“Ericsson will maintain Liberty Global’s European network operations to the highest level, ensuring that their customers will enjoy the best possible user experiences,” said Peter Laurin, SVP of Managed Services at Ericsson. “Ericsson’s Managed Services creates sustainable differentiation as Liberty Global evolves from a focus on network-centric operations to user experience-centric operations, using market-leading technologies in automation and artificial intelligence.”

“Our partnership with Ericsson is part of Liberty Global’s strategy to continually improve the quality of our services while creating operational efficiencies throughout the region,” said Jeanie York, MD of Core Network Planning, Engineering, and Operations at Liberty Global. “Ericsson’s leadership in Managed Services was an ideal fit for us as we innovate to improve the customer experience.”

This gig is especially intriguing since Liberty Global is a fixed line player and that’s not exactly Ericsson’s core area. Our understanding was that, as part of its efforts to bring Managed Services back to profitability, Ericsson was only going to manage the services of companies it also flogged kit to. Clearly there’s some wriggle room in that strategy.

Elsewhere Ericsson also managed to do a 5G NR-compliant live data call over the 39 GHz band using the Intel AIR 5331 baseband in both the US and Sweden. This is more of a big deal for Intel as it strived to keep pace with Qualcomm on the 5G modem front, but is also a sign that Ericsson is keen to encourage a diverse 5G ecosystem.

“This live 5G demonstration on the 39 GHz band signifies how close 5G commercial services are to reality in North America,” said Asha Keddy, VP of Next Generation and Standards at Intel. “Using the Intel 5G Mobile Trial Platform configured with a 39 GHz RF chip/antenna, we successfully demonstrated a 3GPP-compliant data call performed connecting to an Ericsson commercial 5G g-NB base station, an important step in ensuring our commercial platforms are field ready for deployment in 2019.”

If you’re still sceptical here’s a photo of some random kit in a room to serve as proof that the test really did happen.