The Ericsson network was deployed during Phase-1 and initial testings were done by the AERPAW team. We will support Ericsson network-based experiments as part of our Phase-2 General Availability in the Fall 2023. This section provides the details of the Ericsson 5G network and the equipment deployed.
1. Network Architecture
1.1 Wireless Networks
5G NR NSA (Non-Standalone)
4G LTE
NB-IoT (Future)
Deployed Network Configuration:
5G NSA network with
LTE anchor cell in Band 66
NR cell in Band n78
EN-DC Option-3 NSA (non-standalone) 5G network with
eNB as Master Node (MN)
gNB as Secondary Node (SN)
2-Sectors 5G network with
120 degrees wide each
1.2 Radio Access Network - 4G & 5G RAN
The picture on the right shows the RAN deployed at Lake Wheeler site LW1. The RAN consists of
on the tower
2x LTE Band 66 radio units
1x NR Band n77/78 radio
2x directional antennas at 3 GHz band
inside the Enclosure on the ground
BBU
Router
Battery pack
1.3 Core Network - 4G
The picture on the right shows the Core Network (CN) deployed at AERPAW Network Control & Data Center at Centennial campus.. The CN consists of
Enterprise Core in a Box
Router
App Server
2. Ericsson 5G Network Capabilities
AERPAW testbed includes a commercial grade Ericsson 5G NSA network.
Key Features of Ericsson 5G network:
3GPP Release 15 compliant
5G mode: Non-Standalone (NSA)
2 sectors, each with a LTE and an NR carriers
LTE Sector
Primarily for Control plane
Frequency Band: Band 66A
Channel bandwidth: 5 MHz DL + 5 MHz UL, FDD
MIMO
2-sectors each with 2x2 MIMO
Transmit power: 5W max per antenna port
Antenna gain: 10 dBi
NR Sector
Primarily for Data plane
Frequency band: 3.3 - 3.5 GHz (Sub n77/78 band)
Channel bandwidths: 20,100 MHz (40 and 60 MHz support in Phase-3)
MIMO
2-sectors each with 2x2 MIMO
1-sector with 4x4 MIMO (in Phase 3)
120 deg Azimuth beam width
Transmit power: 40W max per antenna port
Antenna gain: 15.5 dBi
3. Ericsson Network Equipment
Detailed description and data sheets of the network elements are given in Section 5.3.4.1.