Telstra and Ericsson already announced their first deployment of Ericsson Private 5G after six months of partnering to deliver private 5G. They also worked together with Microsoft to work on Ericsson Private 5G, an on-premises dedicated 5G network for the enterprise. It leverages a single-server 5G dual-mode core.

Telstra Enterprise customer AgriFood Connect has worked with the telco to successfully deploy industrial IoT capabilities over 5G standalone. AgriFood Connect is an Australian not-for-profit organisation created to accelerate technology adoption across agriculture and manufacturing industries. The industrial IoT capabilities over 5G standalone can support a variety of business requirements such as asset condition monitoring as well as the collection of data from machinery. With these capabilities, predictive maintenance alerts will be enabled. This feature can drive cost savings against unplanned downtime and repairs.

Ericsson Private 5G is a private wireless connectivity platform. It is said to facilitate advanced operations through automation, flexibility, and intelligent connectivity. Ericsson Private 5G can also facilitate both LTE and 5G standalone simultaneously with a single server 5G dedicated network based on a dual-mode-core.

According to Telstra network and infrastructure executive Iskra Nikolova: “The combination of a dedicated network in partnership with Telstra’s existing network capabilities can facilitate the implementation of a whole variety of new and emerging technologies. Challenging locations in regional Australia, where there is comparatively limited backhaul capacity, will greatly benefit from this technology. For example, remote farming or a manufacturing business could embrace the latest advancements in video analytics and IoT connectivity, almost regardless of their location, with the data processed on-site.”

In addition to this, according to the Head of Ericsson ANZ Emilio Romeo, the deployment represents a significant step towards: “automation and control through intelligent 5G connectivity. The Ericsson Private 5G platform will enable emerging industrial use cases across multiple verticals such as Autonomous Mobile Robots, AI, Automation, drone technology, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, and many more innovative 5G use cases made available through Ericsson’s robust Industry 4.0 partner ecosystem.”

Meanwhile, AgriFood Connect acting CEO Thomas Hall said “We are focused on supporting businesses in defining their challenges within the agri-food value chain...Utilising advanced technologies like the dedicated 5G network will help demonstrate the latest advancement technology innovations.”

According to an announcement made last September 2020, Telstra and Ericson also worked together with Ciena, a software services supplier to expand the optical network capability of Telstra by 400 percent over a year.