The companies say the solution addresses the growing market demand for industrial solutions based on cellular technology. These will support diverse use cases on manufacturing shop floors, or at logistic centres, airports and harbours, they added.
Adel Al-Saleh (pictured)), CEO of Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems business services and systems integration unit, said: “Our enterprise and mid-sized customers demand secure, reliable, and high-performance network solutions tailored to their specific requirements. Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson have a longstanding partnership in innovation, technology and services.”
The news comes only two months after Vodafone’s German operation, a fierce rival to Deutsche Telekom, also said it was working with Ericsson on networks for factories and other installations.
Arun Bansal, president and head of Europe and Latin America at Ericsson, said: “Our close partnership with Deutsche Telekom will no doubt continue to showcase innovation and customer focused solutions that will raise the bar for smart manufacturing.”
Unlike Vodafone and Ericsson, which revealed details of a project in an electric car factory, Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson gave no particular details of projects. They said that the combination of public and private cellular networks “provides the best coverage, capacity and availability on the campus and in the wider area of activity”.
Al-Saleh said: “This unique partnership draws on the best of both companies to accelerate our clients’ automation and customer responsiveness today and into the future. We look forward to driving innovation in this partnership and making it a global success for our customers.”
The companies said the partnership will offer Ericsson technology “complemented with solutions from the Deutsche Telekom portfolio such as Wifi and local network integration, and internet of things (IoT) products”. Projects will use both 4G and 5G cellular technology.
Bansal added: “As a technology leader, our Campus Network solutions boast flexibility and reliability. We are excited to boost the productivity of our customers while setting the standard for Industry 4.0.”
