Ericsson’s head of Business Area Networks Fredrik Jejdling (pictured) voiced an expectation open RAN systems being developed by other players would come too late for 5G rollouts, noting the latest access technology needed to be deployed as quickly as possible.

Answering a question on the potential impact of new RAN reference designs from the likes of Qualcomm on the network market during an investor event, the executive cited readiness and time to market issues with systems under development.

“There is an aspect of time and we have 5G technology which constitutes critical infrastructure that we believe needs to be built out right at this point in time,” Jejdling said, noting this would need to be done using existing technology.

Jejdling was speaking during a session hosted by the vendor as part of its Ericsson Unboxed investor event.

He also highlighted Ericsson’s role engaging with customers on elements of the open RAN ecosystem, pointing to its own role in developing cloud RAN systems.

“What the market is looking for is supply chain diversity, solution flexibility and other capabilities,” he added. “We’ve been very active in developing and participating in what we call virtualisation through cloud RAN, which we see as a very promising technology.”

“We’ve been part of the principle of openness and increasing open architectures and cloud RAN is evidence of that,” he noted. “We work with customers, continuously innovate and respond to what they want, which is typically high performing, energy efficient and secure networks. In some cases integrated solutions are what’s here and now and can offer that.”