A Vision For 5G: The Story Behind Ericsson's and Swisscom's Co-Design of 5G First, 5G Fast and 5G Wide
A Vision For 5G: The Story Behind Ericsson's and Swisscom's Co-Design of 5G First, 5G Fast and 5G Wide
A Vision For 5G: The Story Behind Ericsson's and Swisscom's Co-Design of 5G First, 5G Fast and 5G Wide
A vision for 5G
The story behind Ericsson’s
and Swisscom’s co-design of
5G first, 5G fast and 5G wide
2 Swisscom case: A vision for 5G
Executive summary
In April 2019, Swisscom became the first across dense urban hotspots, remote
to launch commercial 5G in Europe. Since alpine regions and major transport routes.
then, the leading service provider has hit As Swisscom begins to prepare for the next
5G milestone after milestone, together chapter of 5G – with a fully standalone
with Ericsson, as part of its commitment network and cutting-edge innovations
to unleash faster 5G speeds for Swiss – we take a closer look at the past,
consumers and enterprises. Today, present and future of the groundbreaking
Swisscom delivers 5G coverage to 96% of Swisscom 5G vision.
the Swiss population – and still continues
to build out both 5G capacity and coverage
Buried deep within the Flumserberg and Swisscom and Ericsson. It is also one of many is extending its reach further than ever into
Churfirsten mountain range, Lake Walen use cases which the Swiss service provider is Swiss industries and innovation ecosys-
offers a perfect picture postcard of the Swiss developing today as it looks to unleash the tems. Today, Swisscom is driving this change
pre-Alps. Here, in the winter months, hund- next wave of 5G enterprise across Switzer- through world-class research and develop-
reds of skiers and snowboarders can be found land, Europe, and the world. ment together with local enterprise, start-ups
carving their way down the adjoining snow and academia partners such as ETH Zürich
packed slopes toward the scenic lake below. A story of Swiss innovation and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
in Lausanne.
In late 2020, this alpine idyll provided the At a tenth the size of California, Switzerland is
backdrop for thrill seekers of a different kind, a relatively small country with a high acumen “If you want to have the best network, you
with another need for speed. On the southern for innovation. Over the past ten years, the also have to prove it,” says Klaus Liechti,
banks of the lake, engineers from Swisscom, alpine confederation has consecutively top- Senior 5G Program Director at Swisscom.
Ericsson and Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) ped the Global Innovation Index, thanks to a ”Today, we have several 5G contracts with
collaborated to develop a four-kilometer combination of a strong local R&D network, a large business customers in the areas of
antenna corridor adjacent to a test railway bourgeoning startup scene and a significant public safety, transport, health and construc-
track. Here, they would eventually test, deve- number of patent applications delivered year tion. To drive those use cases forward, we
lop and deliver world-first 5G throughput on year. know it is important to be first. This is not
speeds of 1.2 Gbps and latency as low as 8 always easy of course, and we must put in a
milliseconds – on a moving train. Swisscom, the incumbent service provider lot of effort to test again and again and tick
that served 57 percent of mobile subscrip- all the boxes. Even though Swiss engineering
Swisscom is a communications service pro- tions in the last year, powers this global can be a little too precise sometimes, like with
vider that has grown accustomed to deliv- innovation machine. With 5G, a connectivity our watches; our technology firsts show that
ering world technology firsts, and this test infrastructure which is significantly faster, if it can work here in Switzerland, it really can
was another proof point on a long list of 5G and more agile, responsive, integrable and work anywhere.”
technology milestones between partners secure than previous mobile generations,
June 2017: Sept 2018: April 2019: Nov 2019: Dec 2020:
First 20Gbps First 3GPP 5G First large-scale 5G First 5G low- and First 5G standalone
5G prototype network commercial network in mid-band Ericsson voice and data call
Europe Spectrum Sharing call
3 Swisscom case: A vision for 5G
5G (<2 Gbps)
5G (<1 Gbps)
LTE
Since December 2020, Swisscom has delivered 5G coverage to 96% of the Swiss population
5 Swisscom case: A vision for 5G
Focusing on customer value to deliver 5G tunities will be found in the so-called “smart ity and quality. “Reliability is not always a
fast production” industries comprising logistics, guarantee,” says Klaus Liechti, “but we can
energy, factory, mining, and airport use design systems so that they are resilient and
Data traffic is rising sharply in Switzerland, cases, according to a different 5G revenue can recover themselves so that impact is lim-
as indeed it is across much of the world. report by Analysys Mason. ited and we relentlessly hunt for the improve
In 2019, Swisscom recorded a 29 percent the worst cells in the network, to raise the
growth in data traffic across its mobile net- Today, Swisscom is already making signif- overall quality of our network.”
works. According to the Ericsson Mobility icant headway in many of these areas with
Report, this growth will continue at a com- smart manufacturing, real-time quality Building density to extend 5G wide
pound annual growth rate of 26 percent assurance and remote maintenance use
across Europe over the next five years. And cases already in place with medical technol- Swisscom delivers one of the highest density
while today’s smartphones consume an ogy manufacturer Ypsomed, goods inspec- networks in the world which today provides
average of around 10 gigabytes per month tion corporation SGS, and heat pump sup- 99 percent 3G/4G area coverage and 96
in Europe, service providers must quickly plier Meier Tobler respectively. Rhomberg percent 5G population coverage. Such an
face up to the reality that this will rise to as Sersa Rail Group is just one of many other extensive densification strategy is necessary,
high as 46 gigabytes per month in Western recent enterprise additions. partly to mitigate the strict EMF regulations,
Europe in coming years. but also to deliver on the service providers
Delivering the low-latency and mission-crit- commitment to provide coverage every-
On the consumer side, this will be driven by ical demands of Industry 4.0 use cases will where and high-capacity coverage exactly
new high-speed and low latency use cases require a different approach to Quality of where it is needed.
such as consumer augmented- and virtual Service (QoS). Today, Swisscom already has
reality (AR/VR), mobile 5G gaming, and 4K the pieces in place to deliver full end-to-end Today, across urban and suburban areas
video streaming. “We have been working network slicing across both core- and radio as well as nationwide transport routes and
very closely with many different technology access networks, something demonstrated ski resorts, Swisscom deploys mid-band
partners to enable these market develop- with Ericsson in 2018, to guarantee that new 3600Mhz spectrum 5G so that it can deliver
ments,” says Patrick Weibel, “however, even Industry 4.0 QoS requirements can be met full data rates of up to 2Gbps to the mass
with all these cool things we bring into our across each use case slice. market. In rural areas, where capacity
smartphone, hardly any customer is willing demands are not as high, the service pro-
to pay one Swissfranc more. That is because Martin Schilling believes 5G RAN slicing vider currently deploys 5G in the 2100MHz
we include 5G in all our subscriptions, could be the defining piece of a software band and uses Ericsson Spectrum Sharing of
whether it is basic or premium. As the reve- puzzle that unlocks new opportunities for 4G and 5G to not sacrifice 4G capacity.
nue is not going up with that alone, we must Swiss enterprises in coming years: “Tradi-
find new markets and revenue opportunities, tionally, it’s the radio access network that Another example can be found across the
which is the focus of a lot of our work with limits mobile connection quality the most, so nation’s rail transport networks. Following
Swiss enterprises today.” from that perspective, having the ability to its successful proof of concept with Swiss
slice that network – to provide even better Federal Railways, Swisscom is today devel-
On a global level 5G-enabled busi- performance, quality, and reliability – will oping a similar pilot to provide 5G rail net-
ness-to-business use cases could generate be a big part of serving tomorrow’s mission- work coverage between the cities of Bern
up to USD 700 billion revenue potential for and business critical use cases.” and Thun.
service providers by 2030, according to fore- Swisscom also works relentlessly with net-
casts in the Ericsson’s 2030 Market Com- work tuning, to ensure that performance Patrick Weibel believes that pilots such as
pass. In Switzerland, most of these oppor- demands are always met in terms of capac- this will inevitably be key to enabling future
consumer and industrial use cases on the
nation’s railways: “Our ambition is to extend
capacity across one-to-two-thousand-ki-
lometer rail corridors across Switzerland so
that we can meet new data demands across
Smart production Smart urban railway control operations and passengers.
For example, we are also engaged in another
• Smart factories • Logistics • Construction • Stadiums
• Mining • Energy activity to develop in-transit consumer
• Urban ‘hot spots’ • Smart automotive
• Airports streaming services on trains. It is early, but
we believe there will be increased moneti-
zation opportunities for telecom across rail
networks through 5G.”
5G will unleash new revenue opportunities for service providers across many new market segments
6 Swisscom case: A vision for 5G
3600 5G
2600 4G 4G
Ericsson
4G/5G 2100 4G 4G/5G Spectrum
aggregation Sharing
1800 4G 4G
800 4G 4G
Ericsson
700 4G 4G/5G Spectrum
Sharing
Swisscom makes smart, efficient use of its available spectrum thanks to Ericsson Spectrum Sharing and Carrier Aggregation
Increasing indoor cellular deployments By aggregating wide-coverage low-band architecture. For us, it is important that we
FDD frequencies (e.g., 700-900MHz) with deliver the right value at the right time for
For indoor connectivity deployments, 5G high-capacity mid-band TDD frequencies Swiss enterprise and our technology part-
cellular technologies provide a strong alter- (e.g., 3600MHz), Swisscom can extend its 5G ners. To do that, we have to take that journey
native to fixed broadband and Wi-Fi tech- mid-band population coverage by up to 50 together.”
nologies, especially for latency-sensitive percent, without increasing the number of
enterprise operations and to get a seamless radio deployments. This estimate is based on In addition to providing the 5G coverage and
mobile user experience. However, indoor earlier Ericsson field tests with other partners speeds where needed, an enabler for this
solutions can also be deployed to add an worldwide. transformation to 5G Standalone will be the
extra 3G, 4G and 5G indoor capacity layer switch to Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core, a
for consumers wherever it is needed in dense Building the ultimate 5G solution that combines Evolved Packet Core
urban centers, to build on the base capacity (EPC) and 5G Core (5GC) network functions
provided by rooftop-level macro base sta- Having delivered on its ambition to pro- to a common multi-access and cloud-native
tions. vide 5G first, 5G fast and 5G wide, the focus platform, will deliver a user experience that is
now for Swisscom is to build the ultimate even more responsive, reliable, and secure.
Today, Swisscom is deploying the multi-ven- version of 5G. In May 2021, the service pro-
dor compatible Ericsson Radio Dot solu- vider extended its strategic partnership with
tion to do just that, something Swisscom’s Ericsson in a move which will also include
Martin Schilling says will continue to be the switch-on of 5G standalone. Swisscom,
key as part of their continued densifica- in fact, has already successfully showcased
tion strategy: “As new 5G use cases emerge standalone architecture when, in December
and the demand for capacity and coverage 2020, it delivered Europe’s first voice and
increases, our focus will be to increase our data call over a live 5G standalone network.
small cell deployments in cities and indoor However, for Swisscom, this journey is not
spaces. Today, we are already deploying just about the technologies. It is also about
Ericsson Radio Dots in many public indoor timing and to effectively support the Swiss
spaces such as shopping malls, meaning that digitalization journey.
we can extend our network where the traffic
needs it with up to 2Gbps speeds.” “Our goal with 5G standalone is to increase
our market share and address new markets
Soon, Swisscom will also look to intro- with end-to-end slicing, low latency, edge
duce low- and mid-band Ericsson Carrier computing, and local breakout deploy-
Aggregation a 5G software feature which ments,” says Patrick Weibel. “However, this
it successfully tested in December 2020. is not just a question of switching to a new
7 Swisscom case: A vision for 5G
•
5G standalone for consumers “Today, in Swiss enterprises, we are offer- Innovating in the new 5G playground
ing low-latency and ultra-reliable wireless
With the move to 5G standalone, Swiss con- opportunities which have never really been To offer a glimpse into this future, Swisscom
sumers will benefit from a much-improved there before,” says Patrick Weibel. “We’re recently completed its 5G Startup Challenge
smartphone experience through improved working together with industries to learn which showcased the most creative, cutting
latency, responsiveness, battery lifetime, how they work and find out where those edge and innovative technologies currently
voice experience and security. It also deliv- value opportunities are, whether that be being developed across the Swiss 5G eco-
ers an incentive for service providers to try more efficient operations, more agile shop system.
to find a new mass market 5G consumer floors or simply the ability to retain network
potential beyond smartphones, such as data on-premises. It’s a really exciting time.” The proof of concepts really give an indica-
smartphone-tethered AR (Augmented Real- tion of the true power of full 5G and include
ity) glasses and untethered AR glasses, as is Each market is different, and the market examples such as wireless high-definition
currently being trialed in other parts of the drivers will not always be the same. One area 3D modelling technologies so that architects
world, e.g. South Korea. where Swisscom has seen strong indus- can view and alter 3D plans in a virtual world
try momentum, particularly among armed from any location, robotic teleoperation sys-
”With 5G standalone, the opportunities for forces- and blue-light customers, has been tems so that industries can operate in areas
our customers will be fantastic and we will through the deployment of Mobile Private that are either too dangerous or too remote
see a lot of new things moving the market in Networks and Mission Critical Communi- for humans, and advanced tethered drone
coming years,” says Patrick Weibel. “This will cation networks, where the key driver is technologies so that public safety organiza-
begin with a better wireless experience such not so much improved speeds and latency, tions can gain immediate situational aware-
as improved voice, lower latency and more but improved reliability and data privacy ness from elevated perspectives at the push
efficient management of battery resources. through local on-premises breakout deploy- of a button.
After that, it will develop into much more ments.
interactive and powerful consumer devices, “From a technology perspective, this is a
like lightweight glasses for example. We are ”Switzerland is a unique case,” says Klaus really exciting time to be alive”, says Patrick
investigating all these technology use cases Liechti. “We don’t have much manufactur- Weibel. “There are so many creative possibil-
today, because we know that the device will ing, like in bigger countries, but we do have ities which we can deliver with a full end-to-
of course be major driver. If the capabilities many international organizations and banks end 5G platform, and we are very aware of
develop on the device side, then there will be where the key market driver is not so much our role in that. We are not just building the
big opportunities for sure.” radio performance but increased end-to-end platform of the future; we are also building
security. If we want to bring these organiza- the ecosystem. Every day we take another
5G standalone for industries tions in to our network, it is crucial that we step on that journey – learning more about
can guarantee the expected level of service industries, supporting the ecosystem to inno-
Swiss enterprises, on the other hand, will and their own control of that. The plan today vate. 5G is a playground for innovation and
benefit through an architecture which offers is to first develop those proof of concepts we will enjoy the next few years, that’s for
increased support for high-reliability and and then scale them across the market, just sure.”
time-sensitive industrial applications, in as we did with rail operator SBB last year. In
addition to increased end-to-end security fact, we have a saying here that if you can
and authentication, and improved integra- make it work in a train, then you can make
tion with local IT operations. it work in the rest of Switzerland. This is the
power of 5G.”
8 Swisscom case: A vision for 5G