Spark collaborates with Ericsson and Red Hat for 5G Standalone trial

STOCKHOLM – Spark, New Zealand's largest telecommunications and digital services provider, together with Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and Red Hat today announced the successful completion of a 5G Standalone (5G SA) trial in New Zealand. The trial was delivered within an impressive three-month timeframe, demonstrating the ease with which standalone cloud-native solutions can be deployed.

The 5G SA trial was underpinned by Ericsson's cloud-native 5G Core running on Red Hat OpenShift, integrated with Spark's 5G Fixed Wireless Access Network (FWA) to test enhanced wireless broadband. The trial successfully confirmed and validated the technical capabilities of 5G Standalone technology on Spark's network.

The trial demonstrates how 5G standalone technology can deliver the low latency, high bandwidth and reliability that are required for high-performance use cases, such as real-time video analytics, when compared to previous wireless technologies. Ericsson's dual-mode 5G Core network slicing and edge computing deployment capabilities creates the potential for new monetization opportunities for Spark's customers in enterprise and critical communication.

The trial is part of the ongoing groundwork that Spark is undertaking to prepare for the roll out 5G standalone network at scale in the future and explore the future benefits of 5G.

Read the full press release here.

Ericsson