Ericsson said it is spectrum and regulation, and not access to equipment and technology that is putting the roll-out of 5G at risk in Europe. In a blog post, Ericsson CEO Borje Ekholm said his company has the resources ready to roll out 5G with market leaders, but European customers are facing high levels of uncertainty.
Ekholm's statement makes Ericsson one of the first rival equipment suppliers to respond to the global pressure on Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE. The US, Australia and New Zealand have already banned the companies from working on 5G networks, and some European governments are considering similar action due to concerns about the Chinese companies cooperating too closely with state intelligence in China. If further bans are implemented, it could work to the advantage of European rivals such as Nokia and Ericsson.
However, there has been concern in the industry that without Huawei and ZTE, there is not enough capacity to roll out 5G networks in a timely manner. The GSMA already warned that Europe's 5G roll-out could be limited and delayed if governments there decide to restrict access to certain network equipment suppliers.
The Ericsson CEO dismissed such concerns, saying his company has "the resources and the supply chain capacity to meet a fast ramp-up of market demand" for 5G. While some are just talking of 5G, Ericsson is already making it happen, he said.
The company has 5G deals with ten named companies already, which it claims is more than any other vendor, as well memorandums of understanding with another 42 operators. Many of its radios in the field are ready for 5G with a software update, and Ericsson also claims to be the biggest contributor to the standards group 3GPP in 2018.
So the problem in Europe is not that service providers lack access to the right technology, Ekholm said. Instead, it is a lack of spectrum, high spectrum fees and heavy regulation that is blocking progress, according to the CEO. In a majority of European countries, spectrum auctions have not even been held yet. This has left many customers with uncertainty over their investment plans and how to move forward, the CEO said.
Security standards
Ekholm also underlined that security is built into the 5G standards, and most vendors test the security of software already from the development phase. He appeared doubtful about proposals from the GSMA and some operators to develop new European security test and certification protocols for networks, in order to alleviate the current government concerns. While Ericsson would of course comply with any mandated post-development testing, the CEO said this could slow innovation and raise costs.
"We see it as an insufficient tool since lab-testing only reflects a limited representation of a network, at a given point in time in a specific test configuration," he said. "It also risks slowing down innovation and delaying time to market, including new security updates while leading to extra costs in the entire system as modern software development builds on continuous deployments of new releases and functionality."
