Ericsson and Telefonica have signed a new Memorandum of Understanding for the development of 5G technologies, products and services, pledging to jointly support ongoing and new initiatives in the field. The partners said the MoU specifically focused on the 5G PPP and ETP Networld 2020 initiatives promoted by the European Commission within the Horizon 2020 programme. Ericsson and Telefonica have already begun to collaborate on 5G development at the 5TONIC laboratory recently inaugurated in Madrid by IMDEA Networks Institute and Telefonica I+D, the research arm of the Spanish operator. Ericsson is the lab’s first supporting manufacturer.
The companies’ other joint initiatives will be research, debate, field-testing and demonstrations of technology and equipment to support eventual 5G network architecture, communications, services and applications. Ericsson and Telefonica said the ultimate aim is to develop a joint understanding of use cases, requirements and deployment scenarios for 5G wireless systems and 5G-ready core networks based on a virtualised architecture.
