Ericsson and Telstra make Australia's first all 5G call

Ericsson and Telstra have completed the first end-to-end standalone 5G phone call in Australia. 

Taking place at Telstra’s 5G Innovation Centre on the Gold Coast, the call used Ericsson technology in the Baseband 6630 base station.

Emilio Romeo, Head of Ericsson Australia and New Zealand, says: “Successfully completing Australia’s and the southern hemisphere’s first 5G standalone call is a vital step in driving industrial productivity and bringing Industry 4.0 to life. 5G is not just another incremental upgrade, but a platform for innovation marking a new era of intelligent connectivity.  Together with Telstra – one of the world’s first operators to launch 5G commercially on 5G non-standalone (NSA) – we continue to lead and drive innovation to ensure Australia remains at the forefront of telecommunications technology.”

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The call builds on Ericsson’s implementation of standalone New Radio technology, enabling fast response times and coverage extension. New Radio is a standard for radio interfacing in 5G, while standalone means that 5G is used for the entire call, without relying on existing 4G technologies for signalling or information transfer.

Channa Seneviratne, Network and Infrastructure Engineering Executive, Telstra says: “Telstra has achieved a number of world and Australian milestones on our 5G journey and the successful completion of Australia’s first 5G end-to-end standalone call on Telstra’s network is the latest entry.

"This continues Telstra’s ongoing participation in global 5G leadership whilst simultaneously driving the deployment of 5G in Australia. To date we’ve already launched 5G in 10 cities, and this will increase to at least 35 cities over the next 12 months.

"Making this stand-alone 5G call at our 5G Innovation Centre contributes to our ongoing end-to-end 5G ecosystem learnings. This is another example of the ongoing industry collaboration working within the 5G eco-system and technology partners like Ericsson to pave the way for 5G advancements, and the benefits it will bring all Australians.”