MWC26: Ericsson claims 6G world first

• And so it begins… Ericsson claims 6G bragging rights
• It says it has completed the first pre-standard over-the-air 6G session
• Qualcomm and Keysight are key partners in Ericsson’s broader pre-standard 6G efforts

BARCELONA – #MWC26 – Ericsson has kickstarted what is expected to be a week of 6G declarations and general noise with a claim that it has “successfully completed the world’s first 6G pre-standard over-the-air (OTA) session” at its 5G Smart Factory in Lewisville, Texas, in a move that “validates the readiness of key 6G building blocks”. 

6G is set to be one of the major topics and talking points in Barcelona this week, as identified in TelecomTV’s free-to-download report, MWC26 Hot Trends: A Barcelona Preview.

The Swedish vendor noted in this announcement that the session was enabled using “a trusted, end-to-end architecture designed to be AI and cloud native” and that it featured radio hardware, RAN compute, software-defined air interfaces, and cloud platforms. 

Ericsson also noted that its “future-proof software architecture is deployable on multiple hardware platforms, including CPUs (central processing units) and GPUs (Graphics Processing Units).” 

Such an approach shows that the vendor is ready and willing to engage with a broad range of supporting chip vendors, all of which are battling to be at the heart of next-generation radio access network (RAN) developments. 

Ericsson has been engaged with GPU giant Nvidia, and T-Mobile US, for some time already as part of its AI-RAN tests and trials, but it is also working with Intel on its cloud RAN developments that are set to be an option for network operators as they evolve their 5G architectures and plan for 6G.  

It’s also working closely with wireless chip giant Qualcomm, with which it has “achieved technical alignment on fundamental 6G radio innovations, successfully validating these pioneering advancements through collaborative lab prototypes”, and test and measurement vendor Keysight Technologies – see Qualcomm and Ericsson move 6G from concept to proof, setting a clear path to commercialization and Keysight and Ericsson collaborate to enable pre-6G interoperability validation. 

It’s also worth noting that Ericsson, one of the many European companies flying the sovereign flag on its home continent, is very vocal in its announcement about how its 6G breakthrough in Texas reinforces “US leadership in next-generation wireless innovation”: That very vocal, pro-US messaging is also evident in Ericsson’s announcement that it is a founding member of the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation, the new Linux Foundation open source radio access network initiative that is “aligned with the US national directive for ‘Winning the 6G Race’”. 

It’s clear that Ericsson sees the US as its brightest initial prospect for influencing the 6G roadmap and making money from the resulting network operator deployments.  

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV