Ericsson bags the full monty of SoftBank 5G work with core win

Swedish kit vendor Ericsson has cemented its place as SoftBank’s best buddy by adding 5G core work to its recent 5G RAN deal win.

This isn’t just any old 5G core either, it’s a cloud-native, dual-mode one. Since we’re talking about SoftBank’s standalone 5G core, the cloud-native mart is assumed. The dual-mode bit apparently provides capabilities that enable the development of new 5G use cases, but none of them are specified in the announcement.

“Ericsson’s cloud native dual-mode 5G Core provides the cutting-edge container-based microservice architecture that will help SoftBank to both develop new business models towards consumers, enterprise and industry partners as well as to move onto the next level of network operational efficiency,” said Luca Orsini, Head of Ericsson Japan.

A couple of months ago Ericsson was unveiled as a primary 5G RAN vendor for SoftBank, indicating it accounts for the majority of the entire nascent SoftBank 5G network. “SoftBank and Ericsson have been partners since the 2G era and we are thrilled to support them on this latest part of their technology journey,” said Chris Houghton, Ericsson’s Head of Market Area North East Asia, at the time.