Spark Selects Ericsson as 5G SA Network Supplier

Ericsson has announced that Spark, one of New Zealand’s largest telecommunications and digital service providers, has chosen Ericsson to provide it with a 5G core solution to support Spark’s 5G independent network in New Zealand.
This marks an important milestone in the cooperation between the two sides and will create new monetization opportunities from Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core’s network slicing, network automation and edge computing capabilities.
This collaboration was made after successfully completing a three-month 5G SA trial in 2022, which showed that cloud native core network solutions that support 5G SA can be easily deployed. The 5G SA experiment is based on Ericsson’s cloud native 5G Core and integrated with Spark’s 5G Fixed Wireless Access Network (FWA) to test enhanced wireless broadband. The success of this experiment confirms and validates the technical capabilities of Ericsson’s dual mode 5G core solution on Spark networks.
Spark’s 5G SA network will achieve faster connection speeds, ultra-low latency, higher bit rates, and network reliability. This creates potential for high-performance use cases such as real-time robot control, factory automation, and even autonomous vehicle.

Renee Matepara, Director of Network and Operations at Spark, stated: “Our cooperation with Ericsson is another important step for us to provide a nationwide 5G network and enhance performance through the 5G SA function. The benefits of this technology include providing more opportunities for our partners and better services for our customers. This opens the door to increasing capacity and low latency, and helps to accelerate the integration of technology use cases, such as Connected car, smart cities, Industrial internet of things, cloud hosting games, and non-stop High quality video and augmented and extended reality applications.”
Emilio Romeo, President of Ericsson Australia and New Zealand, said, “We are pleased to collaborate with Spark and achieve smoother 5G migration through Ericsson’s dual mode 5G core technology, supporting their vision of providing world-class 5G services to New Zealand. As this technology is promoted in Spark’s 5G network, Spark will provide higher performance for its 5G network while opening the door to enhanced 5G functionality for consumers and businesses.”
5G Core (5GC) is the core of 5G mobile networks, handling various basic functions in mobile networks, such as connection and mobility management, authentication and authorization, user data management, and policy management.

Ericsson’s dual mode 5G Core combines Evolutionary Packet Core (EPC) and new 5GC network functionality into a universal cloud native platform that supports the introduction of 5G while efficiently coexisting with deployed 4G core networks.