Ericsson
Swedish maker of LTE and 5G NR radio access, baseband and automation systems sold to operators and enterprises. Closed products, no public price list, and a large research output on 6G.
| Organisation | Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ), headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden |
|---|---|
| Website | www.ericsson.com/ |
| Licensing | Proprietary hardware and software sold under commercial contract; some open-source projects published on github.com/Ericsson under their own licences |
| Pricing | No public price list; equipment is sold to operators and enterprises under contract |
| Updated | 15 Nov 2026 |
Products and offerings #
| Name | Kind | Positioning |
|---|---|---|
| AIR 3267 | base-station | Mid-band massive MIMO radio, 3400-4100 MHz, 32T32R, 128 antenna elements, 240 W, 600 MHz IBW, according to Ericsson |
| AIR 3266 | base-station | Mid-band TDD massive MIMO radio, 32T32R, 192 antenna elements, 400 W output, 17 kg, according to Ericsson |
| RAN Compute | base-station | Basebands and radio processors built on Ericsson's own system-on-chip for RAN processing |
| Ericsson Cloud RAN | software | Virtualised RAN functions that run on commercial off-the-shelf servers |
| Ericsson Private 5G | service | 4G and 5G private network product with a cloud-based management portal |
| Ericsson Intelligent Automation Platform | software | Network management and automation platform that hosts rApps from operators, vendors and third parties |
Who they are
This hub is for engineers who work with, test against, or compete with Ericsson radio access equipment. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson is headquartered in Stockholm. According to its company facts page, it was founded in 1876, when Lars Magnus Ericsson started a small mechanical workshop. Today it sells RAN equipment for LTE and 5G NR. Nokia, covered on its own hub, sells comparable equipment. Its customers are mostly operators. You will meet its kit in the field, in operator labs and in interoperability testing, rather than on a bench of your own.
Tooling and APIs
What you install. Nothing on a laptop. Ericsson radios, basebands and management software are sold under contract and run on the operator’s network. There is no SDK for the radios, no GNU Radio block and no SoapySDR module. The question of macOS or Linux support does not arise for the products themselves. Field tools and drive-test software come from test-equipment vendors such as Keysight and Rohde & Schwarz.
Radios. The AIR family combines radio and antenna for massive MIMO. According to Ericsson, the AIR 3267 covers 3400-4100 MHz with 32 transmit and 32 receive branches, 128 antenna elements, 240 W output and 600 MHz instantaneous bandwidth in 13 kg. The AIR 3266 has 192 elements and 400 W output, according to Ericsson. In February 2026 Ericsson announced further radios, including the AIR 6492 with 480 W and 256 elements. See MIMO and beamforming for what these numbers mean for coverage.
Baseband and cloud. RAN Compute is the purpose-built baseband, on Ericsson’s own silicon. Cloud RAN runs the same functions as software on commercial servers. The Intelligent Automation Platform hosts rApps, which are automation apps written by operators, vendors and third parties.
Developer access. The public-facing APIs are network APIs, not radio APIs. Ericsson owns Vonage (acquisition completed on 21 July 2022). Its network API page also presents Aduna, which aggregates standardised network APIs from several operators into one platform. Ericsson also publishes open-source projects on GitHub, mostly tooling such as CodeChecker. None of them gives access to radio internals.
Licensing and pricing at the time of writing. All radio and RAN software is proprietary. We found no public price list.
The Mobility Report. The June 2026 Ericsson Mobility Report puts global 5G subscriptions close to 3.3 billion, according to Ericsson’s estimates. The next edition is due on 30 November 2026. It is a useful source for market context, provided you label its numbers as Ericsson’s.
Migration notes
- Open fronthaul. In September 2023 Ericsson said it had deployed over one million radios that were hardware-ready for open fronthaul, with open fronthaul support in Cloud RAN from 2024. “Ready” is the operative word. Check which software release and which interoperability profile is actually enabled before planning a mixed-vendor network.
- From open-source stacks. Lab work on srsRAN or OpenAirInterface teaches the same 3GPP procedures. It does not carry over to Ericsson configuration, counters or tooling, which are vendor-specific.
- Counters and logs. Performance counters and trace formats are proprietary. Plan analysis pipelines around exported data, not internal formats.
Watch for
- Vendor figures. Output power, capacity and energy-efficiency numbers are Ericsson’s own, measured under its conditions. Ask for test conditions before you compare radios.
- Lab demo against product. Ericsson announces many demos and trials. Separate a trial with an operator from a commercially available feature.
- 6G timelines. Ericsson’s 6G page says it started 6G research around 2018 and expects 3GPP Release 21 to deliver the first implementable 6G specifications in the fourth quarter of 2028. That is Ericsson’s research view of a standard that does not yet exist. See 6G and research.
- Access. Documentation sits behind customer portals. If you need it, ask through your employer or operator.