Ericsson was founded on the belief that access to communication is a basic human right. It is with this belief at our core that we continue to pursue game-changing innovations, ground-breaking solutions, and life-changing connectivity to transform every sector of Australian society; helping to create the networks of the future and collaborating with our partners and customers to bring to life possibilities that, until recently, were considered unimaginable.
These efforts have not gone unnoticed. Ericsson has been independently named the market leader in global 5G network infrastructure in 2020 by both Frost & Sullivan and Gartner. It is an honour we humbly accept, and one made even more valuable because of the impact our technology has on the everyday lives of people around the world.
For over 130 years, Ericsson has had an honoured role in shaping how Australians interact and communicate to this day. From setting the standard for Australia’s telephone network in the 1950s to the launch of the Southern Hemisphere’s first live 5G network, our role in the evolution of Australia’s telco industry cannot be denied. And with NBN Co, we have delivered fast, reliable broadband to hundreds of thousands of homes in remote and rural communities through Fixed Wireless Access technology.
Decades of dedicated work to provide seamless connectivity that has never been more crucial than in the past two years.
For example, during the peak of pandemic lockdowns, we played a critical role in keeping families stay connected and society running. As people shifted to work from home, potential for capacity issues and outages rose. In response to this, Ericsson engineers and technicians remained in the field, working within and around restrictions to keep the networks up and running.
Night-time capacity expansions helped to minimise customer-impacting outages during working hours and to overcome border restrictions, we temporarily reallocated Fixed Wireless Base Station maintenance across our service partners to minimise crossings. With NBN Co, we worked within restrictions, managing new COVID protocols for technicians that enabled them to continue maintaining satellite and Fixed Wireless End User Connections.
Our commitment to NBN Co and our other partners to ensure that critical network infrastructure remained operational was recognised via a special award at the 2021 CommsDay Awards. One we humbly accept but never expected.
Now, as we learn to master the art of living and working around the pandemic, we turn our attention back to the future. Witnessing the impact of a well-prepared networks over the last two years has only further galvanised our commitment to the future and our investment in R&D. In 2021, we partnered with NBN Co to break the global record for long-range 5G transmission via mmWave, achieving speeds of close to 1Gbps at a range of 7.3km, doubling the previous record.
With nbn’s network currently covering more than 3 million regional and rural households across all technologies, of which more than 620,000 are covered by a Fixed Wireless cell, over 90% of these households within reside a 7.3km radius, this technological breakthrough challenges the industry perception of 5G mmWave as a purely for short-range urban deployment, showcasing its potential as a long-range 5G solution.
This innovation is critical in ensuring a digitally inclusive Australia. Long-range 5G transmission utilising mmWave spectrum has the potential to help close the connectivity divide, expanding coverage to more remote communities where fixed line technologies are not economically viable and enabling high data demand applications beyond the capacity of traditional low and mid-band spectrums such as remote education and healthcare.
Through our commitment to technological leadership, and together with our partners, we have pushed the boundaries of technology, continued to set records that change the face of telecommunications and supported a country through a global pandemic, all while looking towards an even more connected, more inclusive Australian future.
Imagine the possibilities the next five, ten and fifty years will bring.
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