Telefonica buys Ericsson 5G equipment

As it became known at the end of December 2021, Telefonica bought equipment for 5G networks from the Swedish manufacturer Ericsson to replace part of the Huawei equipment that the telecommunications operator deployed in Spain.

The replacement of equipment for fifth-generation mobile networks is part of Telefonica's strategy for diversifying suppliers announced in 2019. Expansion reported that the telecommunications company first deployed part of Huawei's equipment, which the company had already bought, before looking for alternative supply options. At the same time, neither the volume of purchases of Ericsson products nor the date of the transaction are reported.

Telefonica buys Ericsson 5G equipment

Earlier, Huawei was at the center of political tension between Washington and Beijing. The United States claims that Huawei equipment can be used by the Chinese government for espionage. Huawei and Beijing have repeatedly denied these allegations. Telefonica claimed that the supplier's decision to diversify was purely technical in nature, and that the company did not see any evidence to support American claims that Huawei equipment poses a security threat.

Telefonica previously stated that it expects to begin deploying autonomous services 5G (SA) within 2022. The three initial use cases developed by Telefonica Tech and implemented by the corporate division of Telefonica Empresas since January 2022 are as follows:

1. Automated controlled robotic vehicles for use in locations, including warehouses;
2. Remote maintenance systems using technologies including smart glasses;
3. Drones to monitor objects.

Telefonica management also noted that automated controlled vehicles for industrial use are connected through the visualization and route planning platform IoT to control communication with them in a bidirectional way, which facilitates the execution of repeated tasks without human intervention. This use case, which is particularly suitable for the industrial, logistics and transport sector, can work in both LTE and 5G environments. To do this, a remote monitoring and assistance platform is used, to which devices such as a smartphone, tablet or smart glasses are connected, which simplifies the work of technical specialists in the field.^[1]

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