Qualcomm, Ericsson, Swisscom and OPPO jointly achieve 5G SA milestone

The demonstration uses Ericsson’s commercial 5G infrastructure deployed on Swisscom’s network, OPPO Find X2 Pro powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 865 5G Mobile Platform, and a mobile test terminal powered by Snapdragon 888 5G Mobile Platform.

Qualcomm Technologies, Ericsson, Swisscom and OPPO today announced that they have completed 5G New Radio carrier aggregation and 5G voice demonstrations across FDD and TDD* bands on Swisscom's commercial 5G SA network in Bern, marking a major step forward in the commercialization of 5G in Europe. 5G carrier aggregation was achieved based on dynamic spectrum sharing technology in commercial infrastructure and mobile test terminals equipped with the newly launched Snapdragon 888 5G Mobile Platform. 5G voice (VoNR) was achieved based on Ericsson's end-to-end 5G RAN, core network and IMS infrastructure and the OPPO Find X2 Pro phone equipped with the Snapdragon 865 5G Mobile Platform and Snapdragon X55 Modem-RF System.

This major development is the first step taken by Swisscom and highlights the significant progress in 5G SA commercial readiness in Europe. The continued improvement of 5G SA network capacity and coverage will bring users an unparalleled 5G experience.

Enrico Salvatori, senior vice president of Qualcomm Europe and president of EMEA, said: “This demonstration is another important milestone on the road to 5G and congratulations to Swisscom, Ericsson and OPPO on this significant achievement. 5G SA is a key focus for operators as it will not only bring great benefits to consumers but also create new opportunities for many industries. These demonstrations show that the benefits of 5G technology are within reach for users and industries in Europe.”

Arun Bansal, President of Ericsson Europe and Latin America, says: "Having already launched Europe's first commercial 5G network with Swisscom, we have now reached another important milestone. This demonstration based on 5G SA is an important step towards unlocking the full potential of 5G. Our reliable, secure and flexible 5G SA architecture will enable Swisscom to develop and deliver innovative use cases and advance Switzerland's digital transformation through Ericsson's vast partner ecosystem. We are proud to be Swisscom's mobile network partner and to help drive the evolution of 5G in Europe."

Christoph Aeschlimann, Chief Information Technology Officer at Swisscom, said: “This experiment shows that the technologies we are investing in today in the lab will benefit our customers in the future. This was recently confirmed by Swisscom’s top spot in the latest Umlaut Connect best network test in Switzerland for the fourth consecutive year. In the future, 5G services will revolve around 5G SA. By investing in 5G SA, we are also investing in new opportunities in Switzerland through, for example, network slicing and 5G enterprise private network deployments.”

Maggie Xue, President of OPPO Western Europe, said: “I am pleased to see that we have taken another solid step in the commercialization of 5G SA in Europe. We believe that the development and application of 5G technology will enter the fast lane in 2021. OPPO will continue to work with Qualcomm Technologies, Ericsson and Swisscom to explore the potential of 5G technology and bring better 5G experience to European consumers.”

5G carrier aggregation can expand Sub-6GHz TDD band network coverage and achieve network capacity expansion, which is critical for operators who need to continuously meet the growing demand for data-driven wireless services and applications. 5G voice supports operators to provide better voice and video call services, bringing users a significantly improved call experience.

5G SA networks will improve the end-user experience with faster network connection speeds and instantly accessible 5G large bandwidth. 5G SA's low latency characteristics and end-to-end network slicing technology can support a wide range of consumer and enterprise use cases and bring new opportunities and innovation in the future.