The corporate collaborated with protection firm, Leonardo, and the Italian Navy to trial a 5G Standalone community aboard naval ships
5G SA at sea: Ericsson collaborates with Leonardo and the Italian Navy to display 5G SA connectivity between two naval vessels.
Protection pivot in motion: The trial comes after CEO, Börje Ekholm, outlined plans to allocate extra capital towards protection as RAN market plateaus, through the latest earnings calls.
State of 5G SA: Operator monetization of 5G SA stays sluggish regardless of rising deployments in 2025
Ericsson, in collaboration with protection contractor Leonardo, and the Italian Navy, examined a 5G Standalone (SA) community on board naval ships engaged in a coaching situation within the open sea.
The trial which was demonstrated on the Italian Navy’s protection initiative, Operational Experimentation (OPEX) 2-25 within the Gulf of Taranto, was carried out utilizing a self-contained Ericsson 5G SA community underpinned by the corporate’s Extremely Compact Core and Huge MIMO Radio Entry Community platforms.
The gear have been put in on board a lead ship, whereas the Ericsson 5G SA buyer premises gear (CPE) which connects end-user gadgets to the community, was arrange in a second ship.
Then leveraging Leonardo’s NINE encryption resolution, a safe, real-time, change of knowledge was demonstrated between the 2 vessels. In accordance with Ericsson, the information included labeled and nonclassified data, reminiscent of “full situational consciousness from the Fight Administration System and video streams from 12 unmanned programs.”
“The OPEX validated the efficiency, safety and resilience of 5G SA for on-board related programs, whereas additionally exhibiting how a unified 5G community can optimize spectrum utilization in comparison with a number of standalone communication programs working on unlicensed and doubtlessly overlapping, bands with interference dangers,” the corporate stated within the press launch.
“This profitable trial with Leonardo and the Italian Navy represents a major milestone in our ongoing dedication to advancing protection capabilities by way of 5G expertise,” Freddie Södergren, head of mission important networks, at Ericsson stated in a press release.
A strategic shift
The trial comes after Börje Ekholm, president and CEO, through the latest earnings name in January, stated that the Swedish vendor will shift consideration to mission-critical and enterprise markets the place its has an natural benefit, amid a flat RAN market.
“On this atmosphere, we plan to extend investments in protection throughout 2026 whereas persevering with to optimize our value base to help margins and money move technology,” Ekholm stated.
Earlier this 12 months, Ericsson additionally unveiled a 5G-Superior location service constructed on its 5G SA core. The service determines gadget places from one base station versus triangulation fashions that depend on a number of base stations for a similar.
5G SA deployments picked up in 2025. An Omdia report discovered that after the 2024 hunch, 5G SA deployments rose because the expertise discovered functions throughout industries.
Nonetheless, regardless of being a superior expertise with added benefits like built-in help for community slices that permits connectivity to be tuned to the wants of customers and functions, buyer uptake stays low, and a majority of operators that soft-launched 5G SA in 2025 are nonetheless struggling to monetize it.
Conversely, Ericsson’s trial exhibits that 5G SA could have a spot past the patron market the place it may ship actual worth in difficult environments. Optimized for edge computing, the structure could allow operators to carry high-quality connectivity to important sectors the place resilience is vital, and SA can unlock use instances that conventional 5G connectivity can’t help.