Unicom, Ericsson team up for 5G development

China Unicom has signed an agreement with Ericsson to collaborate on network architecture, 5G, cloud and the IoT.

With the agreement the two companies aim to accelerate the acceleration of next-generation network standardization and the maturity of network infrastructure. The goal is to establish cross-industry ecosystems for the networking technology areas.

The collaboration will focus on areas including cooperation on 5G standardization, research into key technologies for the standard and joint testing, as well as studies of network visualization and 5G network slicing.

Unicom and Ericsson also plan to collaborate on joint promotion of SDN projects in standardization groups, mobile cellular IoT network services and evolved network architecture for fixed mobile convergence.

“Ericsson is a long-term strategic partner of China Unicom. As the transformation toward next-generation networks approaches, we hope to strengthen the partnership with Ericsson, the world-leading company, in technology and business development - especially in 5G, IoT and cloud - in order to win the future,” China Unicom vice president Guanglu Shao said.