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The agreement spans various aspects of 6G research, including trips to both parties’ research centres
Telstra and Ericsson have signed a letter of intent to collaborate on 6G research.
The agreement will see the companies collaborate on the research, standards development, and real-world testing of 6G technology,
It also includes mutual site visitations, with Telstra engineers visiting Ericsson’s testbed in Sweden, and Ericsson staff travelling to Telstra’s Innovation Centre on the Gold Coast.
Further details on the partnership were sparse, but both partners emphasised the role AI had to play in making 6G networks more intelligent and more customisable for customers. This feature is, in fact, a key element of Telstra’s Connected Future 30 strategy, which aims to allow customers to purchase configurable connectivity services at individual prices.
“Mobile connectivity has been one of the most powerful economic engines of modern Australia. As the first G which is AI-native, 6G will be the most intelligent network yet – capable of advanced network connectivity, and new Network as a Product innovations such as the ability to sense the environment around the network. The latter opens the potential for new use cases for public safety, agriculture, weather detection and more,” said Shailin Sehgal, Telstra Group Executive of Global Networks & Technology.
“We are on a clear and exciting trajectory – from 5G Standalone today, to AI-powered 5G and autonomous networks, towards AI-native 6G that is meeting the evolving and future business needs,” added Erik Ekudden, Ericsson Chief Technology Officer. “6G will redefine what a network fundamentally is – not just an AI-native technology platform, but a platform that senses, adapts and orchestrates resources to deliver outcomes for enterprises and society at scale; simply an intelligent fabric.”
This type of partnership is largely to be expected, with Ericsson having been Telstra’s primary RAN partner for many years. The companies made similar agreements during the early days of the 5G era, though these were often based around delivering greater speeds.
Today, Ericsson and Telstra’s focus has increasingly shifted away from pure speeds and towards the benefits of AI integration and network optimisation. It seems likely that their initial joint research on 6G will follow that same path.
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