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The deal extends their initial core partnership, which first began back in 2020
Ericsson and Telefónica Germany have agreed to extend their core network partnership.
The company’s dual-mode 5G Core and cloud infrastructure solutions already provide mobile connectivity to 45 million O2 Telefónica subscribers, covering 5G Standalone (SA), 5G non-Standalone (NSA), 4G, and 2G.
The agreement, the companies say, will allow them to increase innovation and functionality in the core network in preparation for future demand.
“With Ericsson, we have embarked on a cloud-native transformation journey and are now going to develop it further by expanding our portfolio and capabilities towards network slicing, automation, and API access. This allows us to roll out new features faster and without temporary maintenance breaks – an important step towards the network of the future,” said Mallik Rao, Chief Technology & Information Officer of O2 Telefonica in a company press release.
“Our deep partnership with O2 Telefónica in Germany has been a significantly rewarding one from the start,” added Daniel Leimbach Ericsson’s Western Europe Head of Customer Unit.
“Meeting its challenge to deliver a cloud-native core network for its 45 million subscribers while ensuring it was flexible enough to evolve in line with its strategy meant breaking new ground across a range of disciplines,” he continued.
According to the companies, the existing core network partnership between the two companies is already delivering exciting new benefits for customers. For example, back in May, the two companies completed a world-first with their In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) of network functions in the core network’s user plane. This essentially allows the network’s software to be upgraded without any downtime or service disruption for customers – something previously unthinkable without a cloud-native core.
Speaking of being cloud-native, last month, Telefonica Germany announced a monumental deal to move 1 million of the company’s 5G customers to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. In doing so, it will become the first operator in the world to move its 5G core network to AWS’s cloud infrastructure. a
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