Chunghwa Telecom and Ericsson ink MoU for 5G and Beyond at MWC
- Chunghwa Telecom and Ericsson will strengthen collaboration in network evolution to 5G-Advanced and 6G.
- The two parties will join hands to propel commercialization of 5G Standalone networks and network slicing use cases, with the aim to bring new revenue streams
- With AI and Ericsson’s energy-efficient portfolio, the two aim to build a sustainable network.
Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) and Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona, Spain for cooperation in areas of 5G Advanced and 6G to explore 5G innovative applications. They aim to maximize energy efficiency and to create an energy-efficient network with distinguished mobile experience.
With the MoU, the collaboration aims to accelerate digital transformation for a wide range of industries with advanced connectivity and ICT technologies by addressing the private network market. In the near term, the two parties will work hand in hand to expedite the commercialization of 5G Standalone (SA) to unleash the full potential of 5G with end-to-end network slicing capabilities, to explore innovative 5G use cases requiring ultra-low latency, while fully leveraging the spectrum resources of CHT.
Chris Houghton, Senior Vice President and Head of Northeast Asia, Ericsson, says: “Around the world, with more than 6 billion subscribers on mobile networks today, we believe connectivity is a foundation for digitalization, as are the skills to use digital tools. Through our partnership with CHT, we look forward to improving business productivity through 5G and advanced connectivity technologies to drive the digitization of our industry and society.”
In the long run, the goal of both organizations is to facilitate knowledge sharing and to extend their existing partnership in the standard development of 5G Advanced, including R18 and beyond, and testing into research on future 6G systems. This is to ensure the evolving 3GPP standard can meet the requirements of future communication scenarios. In addition, as CHT has adopted a centralized radio access network (C-RAN) architecture for its island-wide 5G network, the RAN cloudification will also be another key focus area in network evolution. The ultimate goal is to support CHT in building out an intelligent network that is highly automated with Ericsson’s top-notch network portfolio with optimal energy efficiency and advanced AI technology.
Shui-Yi Kuo, President of Chunghwa Telecom says: “We are very delighted to deepen our partnership with Ericsson, to pioneer Taiwan’s 5G technology evolution that underpinned industrial and societal digitalization. The mobile network plays an essential role in realizing environmental sustainability on the path to Net Zero. As the leading telecom operator in Taiwan, we are endeavoring to provide the optimal mobile services with premium network quality, while driving the network evolution for the future and foster new use cases to create value for our customers and bring positive revenue streams. “
David Chou, President of Ericsson Taiwan says: "With over 60,000 patents and industry-leading technologies, we are helping communication service providers around the world to build high-performing networks with our top-of-the-range portfolio. Together with Chunghwa Telecom, we have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve superb network performance while reducing energy consumption. We are very honored and pleased to ink this MoU with CHT to enable a sustainable future with advanced mobile technology.”
The MoU was signed at MWC 2023 by Rong-Chi Lin, Chief Technology Officer of Chunghwa Telecom, and David Chou, President of Ericsson Taiwan and witness by Shui-Yi Kuo, President of Chunghwa Telecom, and Chris Houghton, Senior Vice President and Head of Northeast Asia, Ericsson. In addition, CHT and Ericsson demonstrated a sustainable network use case at MWC, in which CHT deployed Ericsson’s energy-efficient Massive MIMO radios, resulting in more than 30% of energy saving while improving downlink throughput by 6%-8%.