Ericsson, Three launch managed 5G for enterprise resilience

Ericsson and mobile operator Three have launched a managed 5G service for businesses that combines private and dedicated mobile links with managed operations and partner services. Ericsson described the offering as a first-of-its-kind managed 5G service for enterprises and said it is being offered to customers across its markets.

Paul McHugh, Ericsson’s EMEA sales vice-president, noted in a recent interview that many business services and processes depend on connected technology and that companies are treating networking as central to operations. He added that traditional resilience measures-adding extra lines or fiber-can fail to deliver true redundancy if those links terminate at the same local exchange. “To achieve true resilience in a network, you need a variety of types of connectivity,” he said.

The managed service lets enterprises outsource deployment, operation and day-to-day management of their 5G connectivity. Ericsson and Three plan to integrate the offering with partner ecosystems that supply applications, security and edge compute, allowing customers to run mission-critical workloads over 5G while keeping WiFi and wired links for backup or complementary use.

The vendors pointed to manufacturing, logistics and retail as sectors that may adopt the service because they often require predictable mobile performance on factory floors, in warehouses and at stores. The managed approach includes service agreements and operational support intended to simplify adoption for businesses.

Material accompanying the announcement described private 5G combined with partner services as a blueprint for what the vendors call intelligent infrastructure, where connectivity, compute and applications work together to deliver specific business services. The providers presented the service as a way for enterprises to add diverse mobile connectivity to existing networks and reduce the risk of single-point failures.