5G Readiness is on the rise according to a recently released the 5G Readiness Survey 2017 from Ericsson. The report shows that many operators have accelerated preparations for the new technology and trials are being carried out by 78 percent of the respondents compared to 32 percent last year.

Singtel and Ericsson plan to jointly establish a Center of Excellence (CoE) to facilitate 5G development and deployment in Singapore. With an initial investment of 2 million Singapore Dollars over the next three years, CoE aims to spearhead the development of Singapore’s 5G mobile network infrastructure to support future Smart Nation initiatives. 

Ericsson and Intel have successfully completed the 5G 3.5GHz multi-vendor end-to-end Interoperability Developmental Test (IoDT) at a 5G field test in the Chinese capital of Beijing. The 5G technology research and development test on 3.5GHz is being led by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

Ericsson has introduced a new radio product, AIR 3246, for Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (Massive MIMO), which is a complement to Ericsson’s global 5G radio offering. AIR 3246 supports both 4G/LTE and 5G NR (New Radio) technologies and is Ericsson’s first 5G NR radio for frequency division duplex (FDD). 

Ericsson and Hong Kong' SmarTone today announced successful trial of Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology in a live over-the-air demonstration in Hong Kong. LAA allows the use of unlicensed spectrum in the 5GHz band in combination with licensed spectrum.

Verizon, Ericsson and Qualcomm achieved 1.07Gbps (gigabits per second) download speeds with commercial silicon and network infrastructure using the Qualcomm SnapdragonTMX20 LTE Modem that supports Category 18 LTE speeds, during an Ericsson lab trial. 

Ericsson, Qualcomm and Russian mobile network operator MTS have conducted a successful live trial with a commercial small cell product of Rel-13 Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology in Russia. LAA leverages the 5GHz unlicensed spectrum band together with licensed spectrum to deliver enhanced performance for mobile device users

According to latest edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report, nearly 2.6 billion new subscribers will be added to mobile broadband networks in the next six years. Report shows the highest year-on-year mobile data growth globally since 2013, led by massive growth in India, and highlights the underlying need for mobile data.

Ericsson has recently published a ConsumerLab report, From Healthcare to Homecare, which uncovers customer insights about impact of 5G on healthcare. The report findings indicate that patients believe online consultation will reduce the pain of waiting times.

Ericsson has completed a demonstration of 5G in Indonesia, including 5G test bed, 5G New Radio (NR) and use cases such as a motion-sensing robotic arm and live 4K video streaming. The demonstration achieved a peak downlink speed of 5.74 Gbps and latency as low as 3 ms, said the company.

Vodafone Egypt has selected Ericsson as its Network Function Virtualization partner and has gone live with the commercial virtual network function. Since October 2016, Ericsson's virtual Serving GPRS Support Node - Mobility Management Entity (SGSN-MME) has been serving and managing commercial mobile broadband traffic on the Vodafone Egypt network.

SK Telecom has successfully tested LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) five-band carrier aggregation (CA) on its commercial network. SK Telecom’s bandwidth resources as of February 2017 are 10MHz bandwidth in the 800MHz band, 20MHz bandwidth in the 1.8GHz band, 10MHz bandwidth in the 2.1GHz band, 10MHz + 20 MHz bandwidths in the 2.6Ghz band.

Telstra, Ericsson, Qualcomm and NETGEAR have announced a commercial launch of Gigabit LTE network and device. Telstra confirmed at the "Gigabit LTE Experience" event in Sydney today that their Gigabit LTE service has launched in select state capital city CBDs, with more to follow.

Ericsson, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, and SK Telecom plan to conduct interoperability testing and over-the-air field trials based on 5G New Radio (NR) standards being developed based on specifications in 3GPP.