Ericsson partners with MTS to open St. Petersburg’s first 5G Hub

Ericsson will become the leading technology partner in St. Petersburg’s first 5G innovation hub together with Russia’s leading provider of media and digital services, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS).

The MTS 5G Hub, based at the Lenpoligrafmash technopark, will serve as a new global platform for the development and piloting of innovative 5G-powered solutions across robotics, virtual and augmented reality and other areas.

As part of the partnership, Ericsson will launch Russia’s first carrier-grade 5G standalone network, deployed on millimeter wave and 1800MHz spectrum using its market-leading Ericsson Radio System Streetmacro 6701, Radio 2203/4428 and Baseband 6630 equipment, together with 5G Core. This will provide the hub’s residents, comprising both local and international start-ups, with a powerful platform to test and pilot next generation technologies. The start-ups will also receive consultation from Ericsson and MTS experts, as well as the hub’s various other partners.

Together with Ericsson, MTS is already leading efforts to pilot and rollout private LTE and 5G-ready networks across Russian industry, ensuring that Russian enterprise can benefit from new high-speed, resilient and mission-critical connectivity opportunities. Last year, Ericsson partnered with MTS and Polymetal, one of the world’s largest producers of gold and silver, to deploy Russia’s first commercial 5G-ready dedicated network at the industry forerunner’s Nezhdaninskoye gold deposit in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

According to Ericsson’s 5G for business 2030 report, new 5G industry use cases are expected to present an estimated USD 700 billion addressable market opportunity for service providers by 2030, and are forecast to account for up to 35 percent of service provider revenue in future. Significant revenue shares will be found in markets such as manufacturing, automotive, energy and utilities, public safety, agriculture and more; and will cover use case clusters including enhanced video services, real-time automation, connected vehicles and Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality remote operations.

Today, Ericsson is an integral technology partner in making that happen. Across the world, Ericsson operates dozens of 5G testbeds from Europe’s largest 5G research network in Aachen, Germany, to Silicon Valley’s most advanced 5G innovation hub at Ericsson D-15. Ericsson also provides technology and insight to power hundreds of live industry 5G use cases, such as the world’s most advanced Smart Port in Livorno, Italy, to the UK’s first 5G factory at Worcester Bosch. By partnering with key innovation ecosystems and communication service providers, Ericsson is leading the drive to develop next generation 5G technologies.

Vyacheslav Nikolaev, President of MTS, says: “Forecasts and the first 5G developments show that 5G networks enable technological breakthrough in industrial automation, smart cities, and digitalization of all parts of our life - from healthcare to traffic management. And the sooner 5G-based solutions are launched in existing networks and products, the sooner we will get a noticeable social and economic effect from their implementation. Therefore, we are launching more and more pilot 5G zones and are excited to open them to developers from Russia and other countries, so that our country can independently develop advanced technologies associated with 5G networks. Powerful research centres are concentrated in St. Petersburg, and MTS successfully cooperates with them. St. Petersburg has become the second point on the map of Russia, where we are opening the 5G Hub”.

Sebastian Tolstoy, Head of Ericsson Russia, says: “MTS 5G Hub launch is an important milestone in the development of ITC ecosystem in Russia. LTE networks formed a solid platform for successful telecommunication and IT sectors, advanced mobile banking and successful digital ecosystems, such as MTS. 5G technology opens up completely new opportunities for development of applications that can improve our quality of life and enable digital transformation of all economy sectors. Now there are more than 220 million 5G connections around the world. We hope that the spectrum availability issues in Russia will be solved soon allowing the services and applications created in the 5G Hub to become publicly available”.

Ericsson already has a long history in Russia and, in particular, St. Petersburg, which dates back to the nineteenth century. In 1897, Ericsson selected St. Petersburg as the location of its first manufacturing center outside of its home market Sweden. By 1917, an estimated 3,500 engineers were employed at the company’s plant in Samsonievskij Prospekt, St Petersburg, where major customers included the Russian Telecommunications Administration and the Russian Railways.