Ericsson kept the heat on in a bid to be a frontrunner in 6G technology, though separately detailed a move at the recent FIA Formula 1 race in Japan showing it is keeping 5G firmly in its sights.

The vendor stated work to optimise RAN energy consumption under the Intention 6G programme is now at a mid-point. The initiative is a €12 million move contributing to decarbonisation targets set in the France 2030 scheme and is co-funded by domestic bank Bpifrance.

Ericsson explained the project targets delivering optimal RAN energy use while still meeting the needs of 5G and 6G traffic.

AI is playing a central role, driving work involving automating network functions, dynamic energy use and developing infrastructure which can adapt power consumption by itself.

Hitting the mid-point in the development means the focus of Intention 6G is now switching to defining the initial “building blocks”, Ericsson explained.

Christian Leon, head of Ericsson Western Europe, said the project is an example of how its French R&D centre is collaborating with domestic companies to develop networks capable of delivering “tomorrow’s critical use cases and digital transformations”.

French government information explains France 2030 is a €54 billion investment programme covering decarbonisation through technological innovation and promoting companies in key industrial sectors.

Ericsson emphasised the research programme demonstrates the benefits of broad collaboration brought about through public-private partnerships.

Racey.
The vendor today (17 June) separately detailed a trial of standalone 5G its Japanese unit completed with SoftBank Corp during the FIA Formula 1 Grand Prix held at the Suzuka Circuit in March.

Ericsson Japan and SoftBank employed five independent network slices, one of which involved mmWave to boost connectivity at the venue, a set-up the vendor explained enabled quality to be optimised for specific use cases.

The pair deployed tri-band Massive MIMO equipment and various mmWave radios, along with conducting “detailed network design”, all of which upped downlink data rates by 4.1-times and uplink 14.6-times over those SoftBank users received at the event in 2025.

Some base stations employed self-tuning to tweak the performance of individual network slices based on a quality measurement taken every minute.

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Global 5G subscriptions crossed the 3 billion mark in Q1 2026, according to Ericsson’s latest mobility report, as the vendor found changing usage patterns, spikes in data traffic and AI-driven services are fuelling mobile uplink data growth.

Ericsson found 162 million 5G subscriptions were added during the opening quarter of the year. The figure is forecast to more than double to 6.4 billion by the end of 2031.

Overall, Ericsson expects 5G to account for 85% of all mobile data traffic in five years, up from 48% at the end of last year. Indeed, the vendor highlighted changing network traffic patterns as uplink grows generally faster than downlink. Out of 55 service providers, 43 recorded higher uplink growth than downlink, while 17 reported more than 1.5 times higher uplink growth rate.

Ericsson attributed the trend to smartphone communication, collaboration apps, user-generated content and cloud storage. It forecast AI traffic could further push uplink volumes in 2031 to at least three times 2025 levels.

Ericsson CTO Erik Ekudden explained mobile networks are “no longer only about providing best-effort connectivity”, but about “critical, intelligent infrastructure that meets diverse application needs”.

“With the upcoming transition to physical AI, traffic patterns will fundamentally shift,” he added, forecasting a transition from centralised AI models in data centres to distributed, autonomous agents connected by 5G.

Commercial 5G
According to the report, around 390 service providers have launched commercial 5G services, with more than 90 offering standalone (SA) 5G. The vendor also found a rise in SA 5G network slicing offers, which rose globally from 65 in its November 2025 report to 84 today.

Fixed wireless access (FWA) remained another bright spot. Ericsson stated 71% of FWA providers now offer the service over 5G, compared to 57% of providers in June 2025. The report pointed to robust 5G FWA momentum in North America, the Nordics, GCC countries and parts of Asia, though it noted growth in Latin America, Africa and parts of Southeast Asia remains limited.

Looking ahead, the vendor added industry attention is turning to 6G, with initial commercial services expected around 2030 and China, US, Japan, South Korea and GCC countries tipped as early adopters.

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Ericsson announced CEO Borje Ekholm (pictured) will step down at the end of September, with current networks chief Per Narvinger set to be elevated to the top job.

Ekholm, who has been at the helm of the Swedish vendor since the start of 2017, will act as an executive adviser at the company when he relinquishes his position, until 15 June 2027.

Incoming boss Narvinger is currently head of Business Area Networks at the vendor, a position he has held since March 2025.

Prior to taking the networks brief, he headed-up its Cloud Software and Services division. He has been at the company his entire career, which started in 1997.

Ericsson chair Jan Carlson said Narvinger brings “deep technical knowledge of our industry as well as extensive commercial experience and has proved himself in several key leadership positions”.

Carlson added the outgoing chief’s tenure of almost a decade was “defined by extraordinary leadership and strategic advancements” asserting the company had solidified its position as a “leading provider of trusted communications networks”.

He credited Ekholm with challenging “traditional thinking” and positioning the company for long-term success.

Challenges
Ekholm joined Ericsson in 2017 during what he described at the time as a period of “intense change”, with the vendor mid-way through a significant restructure.

Reflecting on his time in charge, the executive stated “we have turned Ericsson around and emerged as a global communications and technology leader” since he arrived.

“Today, Ericsson is driving the transformation of mobile connectivity by changing how networks are used and commercialised, and we are leading the industry into the next stage of AI: the physical AI era. It is our ability to innovate, to adapt and to compete globally that continues to define us.”

He backed Narvinger as the “right leader to continue developing this great company”.

The incoming chief described the appointment as a great honour, adding he was taking over at a “pivotal time in our industry”.

“As AI continues to industrialise, this will increasingly require advanced connectivity solutions, an area where Ericsson is leading,” Narvinger said.

The post Ericsson CEO Ekholm set for exit appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Ericsson unveiled a software subscription designed to bring telco-grade AI models directly into basebands and radios to enable operators to boost 5G performance, automation and energy efficiency without adding new hardware.

According to the vendor, the software uses AI models designed to operate in real time within the RAN, supported by continuous learning and agentic AI capabilities for more advanced network operations. The company stated its telco-grade models are built for ultra-low latency inference, with a focus on reliability across diverse RAN environments.

The service works with Ericsson 5G Advanced across purpose-built and Cloud RAN platforms. Ericsson stated the software uses its silicon in radios and the latest generation of RAN compute to employ “the right AI model in the right part of the radio network”, while its AI capabilities can also be deployed across partner platforms.

The first features are now available, with more to follow later in the year. Initial functions include AI-powered scheduler for link adaptation, beamforming and multi-layer coordination.

Ericsson claimed the technology has been deployed in more than 15 trials worldwide, delivering up to 20% higher downlink throughput and up to 10% better spectral efficiency, alongside support for up to twice as many high-traffic users. It also said AI in RAN could achieve up to 95% coverage prediction accuracy.

Marten Lerner, head of networks strategy and product management at Ericsson, said the company is “redefining what’s possible in mobile networks by bringing powerful AI capabilities to service providers”, adding “we are taking a major step toward AI-native networks”.

Further comments from Ericsson partners SoftBank, Bell, SK Telecom and Rogers focused on the software’s potential benefits around real-time optimisation, network performance, energy savings, automation and support for emerging AI-driven services.

Joe Madden, principal analyst at Mobile Experts, added: “With a software upgrade, operators can squeeze more capacity, better observability, and more accurate location-based services out of the 5G network they bought years ago.”

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Interview: AT&T completed a controlled introduction phase of its cloud RAN deployment, with roughly 25 sites running live traffic on Intel’s Sapphire Rapids processors as it plans to aggressively scale deployment when Intel’s next-generation Granite platform arrives over the coming months.

The Sapphire deployment is currently handling the TDD layers of the network, which represent the largest share of traffic, but not yet the full stack.

Rob Soni (pictured), VP of the operator’s RAN architecture, told Mobile World Live (MWL) Granite, which is already in AT&T’s labs, will enable a full stack covering FDD, TDD, NR and LTE from a single server design.

“This is all coming in phased pieces through the fall and early next year,” he said. “We plan to scale more aggressively on Granite than we did on Sapphire.”

He said AT&T expects to move from a few hundred Sapphire sites to thousands on Granite through 2026 and into 2028.

Performance on the Sapphire sites is matching traditional RAN on call drop rates and throughput, Soni said, and the team is beginning to utilise the platform’s promise of faster feature delivery.

The leading example is AI-driven link adaptation, developed with Ericsson, which replaces rules-based scheduling algorithms with a deep neural network.

Trials are showing roughly 10% gains in spectrum efficiency and 15% improvements in individual user throughput, with further benefits expected as AT&T tunes the global Ericsson model to its own network morphology.

“We’ve done a lot of trailing with the kind of global model of Ericsson,” Soni explained. “We’re now in the process of tuning the model to the AT&T morphology, the AT&T usage. That will change the nature, and we expect there to be more gain.”

Halfway point

In cellular networks, Soni stated a base station must determine on every transmission frame which users to serve, what modulation and coding scheme to use and how to balance competing demands across the spectrum.

It is a computationally intense optimisation problem, and the traditional approach has been to encode engineering judgment into static rule sets. The AI model Ericsson developed learns from network behaviour and adapts more fluidly to changing conditions.

Link adaptation is a critical algorithm for determining the overall multiple user performance in a cellular network,” he stated.

Rival T-Mobile US stated in May 2026 it is also trialling Ericsson’s AI-native scheduler with link adaptation on live 5G-Advanced traffic, but Soni noted AT&T has been trialling it since December 2025.

Soni told MWL AT&T is just past the halfway point for switching out Nokia’s RAN gear for Ericsson’s as part of a five year plan to transition 70% of its network traffic to run on open platforms by end of year.

The post AT&T scales cloud RAN as open RAN swap passes 50% appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Ericsson dug deeper into a mining automation deal with Swedish equipment maker Epiroc, adding LTE and 5G equipment distribution to a near decade-long research arrangement.

The companies anticipate ever-growing demand for complete operational technology systems spanning mining equipment and connectivity. Ericsson cited ease of access to digitalisation techniques as among the benefits the expanded deal offers.

Epiroc Digital Solutions division president Paul Bergstrom said there is a rising need for connectivity systems from mining companies as they “advance automation and digitalisation throughout their operations”.

The equipment manufacturer plans to add Ericsson private 5G systems to its own telematics, remote control and position sensing products.

Last month, Epiroc advanced a deep automation product range with systems for drilling and material handling, expanding a portfolio offered since 2023 which it stated helped mines “unlock millions of tonnes of ore” they would not otherwise have been able to safely recover.

Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions head of product and engineering Pankaj Malhotra said the updated deal with Epiroc ties into the operational goals involving safety, productivity and efficiency.

The pair is “helping mining companies modernise operations at scale”, he said.

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