Building on over 10 years of collaboration dating back to the initial launch of 4G, Ericsson and UScellular announced an agreement to help accelerate the ongoing enhancements to UScellular’s 5G network. The deal includes the deployment of UScellular’s recently acquired C-band and 3.45GHz spectrum, opening up the opportunity for enhanced Fixed Wireless Access (FWA).
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“Ericsson’s technology expertise has helped us keep our customers connected for many years, and we look forward to working with them on this next evolution of our 5G network,” said Mike Irizarry, executive vice president and chief technology officer at UScellular. “These deployments are an important step in our multi-year 5G plan to provide our customers an unmatched network experience.”
Ericsson brings an intelligent Antenna Integrated Radio (AIR) unit together with Ericsson’s Uplink Booster enabling instant channel knowledge and minimal fronthaul consumption, as well as leading network expertise to support UScellular’s plan to build out mid-band capacity for both mobile and FWA customers. Ericsson’s advanced mid-band coverage extension functionality with Carrier Aggregation network solutions will increase coverage and capacity for UScellular customers both at home and on the go.
“5G has the power to radically transform connectivity for industry, small business, and consumers, at home and on the go, in the city and in the countryside,” said Eric Boudriau, Vice President and Head of Customer Unit Regional Carriers, Ericsson North America. “Ericsson has a valued, long-standing relationship with UScellular, and we share their commitment to providing a resilient and sustainable network through the use of industry-leading innovations, ultimately elevating the customer experience.”
UScellular’s network evolution is made possible in part by the latest Ericsson Radio System portfolio of C-band and 3.45GHz equipment together with Ericsson RAN Compute platform that offers a flexible architecture, multi-mode support in a single board, enabling a fast roll out, with the smallest possible footprint and a low power consumption. This adds to UScellular’s existing deployment of Ericsson RAN technologies, including low-band and millimeter wave 5G (mmWave) equipment with mmWave extended range functionality and services to support consumer, residential and enterprise 5G use cases. UScellular expects to activate this mid-band spectrum for customer use by the end of 2023