STOCKHOLM -- Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) Networks Software 15B (release B, 2015) and the Ericsson Software model are leading the way the ICT industry is transforming itself, offering increased performance and commercial simplicity for software delivery.

Networks Software 15B delivers many new capabilities in the areas of radio access, cloud & virtualization, as well as in the network management & control domain, promising to boost networks for maximum performance. Upon introduction, the new Ericsson Radio System will also operate with Networks Software 15B.

Sue Rudd, Director, Service Provider Analysis, Strategy Analytics, says: "Ericsson Networks Software 15B offers end user and operator benefits from radio access to IP core and into the cloud that improve capacity, lower costs and simplify operations. These new capabilities provide substantial incentives for operators to upgrade."

Håkan Djuphammar, Vice President, Head of Technology, Business Unit Cloud & IP at Ericsson, says: "We are delivering system software releases in coherent software packages, synchronized and tested across nodes in networks, end to end, to maximize performance and efficiency.

In between these releases we can deliver separate software releases with dedicated functionality, thanks to our agile development and release methodology. This allows us to continuously deliver new software functions that enable our customers to capture new opportunities of the Networked Society while operating in an efficient manner."

Networks Software 15B highlights include:

The world's first software-only upgrade of the installed base of LTE digital units, and software for new deployments, to enable simultaneous LTE TDD-FDD operation. Concurrent TDD and FDD operation on the same software and hardware reduces capital and operational expenditures. Common hardware and software also efficiently enables TDD-FDD carrier aggregation, which improves the TDD application coverage area by up to 200 percent.

Ericsson is also leading the way in cloud and network functions virtualization (NFV) transformation. In order to ensure realization of the NFV vision, Ericsson is a committed driver of the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) project.

In the Networks Software 15B release, Ericsson is improving throughput and availability in the Cloud Execution Environment. This is needed to meet the high requirements telecom applications have on infrastructure.

Personalized Wi-Fi calling and dynamic control of LTE handover is ensured by the Service Aware Policy Controller (SAPC).

The introduction of the Ericsson Virtual Router provides the industry's first carrier-grade IP routing system, offering agility in service and infrastructure deployment based on a truly modular architecture. It offers redundancy and scaling that is 20 times higher than its nearest competitor.

Ericsson is unifying and simplifying the network management across LTE and Evolved Packet Core (EPC). Automated handling of up to 60,000 LTE cells is shortening the time-to-market significantly for LTE roll-out.

LTE Psi is introduced to support the next wave of LTE coverage expansion more cost-effectively. LTE Psi is an Ericsson innovation delivering full cell coverage by sharing a single radio across three antennas. This improves the energy efficiency of a full coverage LTE cell site by 40%. With WCDMA/HSPA projected to make up the majority of all subscriptions in 2020, Networks Software 15B also includes app coverage enhancements for mobile device users. These include WCDMA Uplink Coordinated Multipoint, which improves capacity by up to 20%, and Enhanced Uplink Low Latency Pre-Scheduling, which increases initial throughput by up to 40%.

To accommodate the growth of machine-to-machine devices on GSM networks, the number of GSM device connections that can be supported has been doubled. Automated Neighbor Relations capabilities have also been added to optimize communications between cells while reducing operating costs. Also, smart authentication with User Data Consolidation (UDC) enables better security for any connected device, including SIM and non-SIM based devices.

Ericsson Networks Software 15B leverages the momentum of the Ericsson Software model, introduced in September 2014, which simplifies software delivery for network operators. Building upon these earlier innovations, Networks Software 15B delivers high performance across operators' networks. Since the first introduction of the new software model, Ericsson customers around the world have signed up for the new model to realize best available performance through a simple and transparent upgrade subscription.

Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC)