Ericsson targets U.S. military as its next big 5G customer

AUSTIN – Big 5G Event – Mike Murphy, Ericsson’s top technology executive in North America, said the 5G networking giant is eyeing a new potential customer: the US military.

“There’s a lot of interest in the US government now for adopting 5G,” Murphy said during a keynote presentation here at Light Reading’s Big 5G Event. “We’ll be delivering products to the DoD [US Department of Defense].”

Murphy argued that Ericsson now meets many of the stipulations that the US military has for its 5G equipment, including support for open interfaces and domestic manufacturing.

Ericsson recently kicked off a broader push into the private wireless 5G space, following a lead carved by its top rival Nokia. In addition, Ericsson’s new military ambitions dovetail with a program instigated by the DoD to foster the development of 5G networks at various US military bases.

That program is part of a wider effort by the Pentagon to connect all branches of the military into one secure, flexible and global communications system that is likely to rely on 5G. Already Lockheed Martin, a top Pentagon contractor, is pushing its “5G.MIL” campaign to wirelessly connect military products such as fighter jets.

Meeting the criteria

Murphy, Ericsson’s CTO for North America, again reiterated the vendor’s stance on open RAN, saying that all future products will feature open specifications to allow customers to mix and match equipment from Ericsson with other vendors.

“Ericsson is betting the company on open RAN over the long term,” Murphy said, adding that Ericsson remains active in the O-RAN Alliance, the association helping to develop open RAN specifications.

However, companies such as Mavenir and Dish Network have questioned Ericsson’s commitment to open standards, when open RAN could loosen Ericsson’s grip on its network operator customers by giving them the opportunity to more easily replace Ericsson equipment with equipment from other vendors.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Murphy said of such criticisms.

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