AT&T and Ericsson announced that they have begun deploying Ericsson Cloud RAN technology on AT&T’s commercial 5G network.

The two companies have completed a Cloud RAN call as a milestone in deploying Open RAN. AT&T now has commercial traffic flowing on Cloud RAN sites, the first ones of which are located south of Dallas, Texas.

The configuration used for the Cloud RAN call has been deployed in the AT&T network, and third-party vendors will be able to use this configuration for Open RAN in the future.

Chris Sambar, Head of Network, AT&T, says: “This is the next milestone in AT&T’s Open RAN journey. By moving traffic to cloud RAN sites, we’re accelerating our c-band deployment and continuing to virtualize our network. The open network future is coming fast and we’re looking forward to seeing the innovation that it brings for our customers.”

Fredrik Jejdling, Executive Vice President and Head of Networks, Ericsson, says: “Taking the next leap is second nature to us at Ericsson as we constantly innovate and capitalize on technology trends and shifts to stay ahead of the curve. This progress in our collaboration with AT&T shows our commitment to supporting their Open RAN ambition.”

As part of the live deployment, AT&T and Ericsson have migrated one frequency band 3700MHz for their C-Band traffic to Cloud RAN infrastructure. This is the next step in the ongoing collaboration between AT&T and Ericsson to realize the benefits of Cloud RAN and move AT&T closer to their goal of a fully open, agile, programmable wireless network.

Moving to Cloud RAN enables AT&T to deliver and secure data in the most cost-effective way possible while also creating an open environment for developers to create new apps and services.

AT&T and Ericsson will continue to implement and optimize new network capabilities in this rapidly evolving RAN cloud-based architecture area.