Ericsson will supply equipment to upgrade and enlarge the 5G radio network run by Cellnex Poland, the trade publication Evertiq reported Wednesday.
The order spans radios, RAN compute modules, microwave links, antennas and enclosures, and some of the products will be rolled out in large numbers for the first time. Cellnex Poland's towers and infrastructure carry the network of Polkomtel, which sells mobile service under the Plus name. Ericsson says the gear runs on chips it designs itself and is more energy efficient, smaller and lighter on towers than earlier equipment.
Several pieces of the deal are firsts. Cellnex is the launch customer for the MINI-LINK 6356, a high-power E-band microwave radio Ericsson built to carry high-capacity backhaul traffic. It is also the first operator to deploy Ericsson's Transport Automation Controller on a large scale; the system uses artificial intelligence to manage those microwave links automatically. The AIR 3229, a radio that handles two frequency bands in one box, will make its debut in Poland, and Cellnex also picked Ericsson's energy and enclosure platform for its sites.
The report did not give a contract value or say how many sites are involved.
Leszek Lis, operations director and a management board member at Cellnex Poland, said "the growing demand for mobile data transfer requires not only the modernisation of active equipment." He said the network also needs more equipment to densify service, while improving energy efficiency, resiliency and environmental performance.
