Ericsson delivered its first U.S.-made commercial 5G base station product to a customer. That delivery came nearly two years after Ericsson began its journey toward making products for its North American customers in North America.

Verizon was the lucky recipient of the Texas-made product, with CTO Kyle Malady picking up the prize at Verizon's headquarters in New Jersey. That prize was an Ericsson millimeter-wave (mmWave) Street Macro base station product designed to support Verizon’s 5G deployment that is initially heavily dependent on its mmWave spectrum holdings.

That equipment emerged socially distanced from Ericsson’s 300,000-square-foot factory that came online in March. The factory is targeted at producing 5G and advanced antenna radio systems for 5G deployments in the United States as that is where Ericsson is seeing a bulk of the initial market deployments. The factory also using radio access network (RAN) equipment produced at the facility.

While “smart,” the facility initially counts approximately 150 employees, though an Ericsson spokesperson said that number will vary depending on demand. The facility itself is not expected to be fully operational until later this year, and Ericsson had previously told SDxCentral that it will add support activities for new 5G products to the facility.

Ericsson initially announced the production facility last July, with plans to have it “operational in early 2020.” It followed that up by announcing its location and size in September.

Verizon’s receipt of the initial equipment is significant as Ericsson has become an increasingly important equipment provider for the operator.

The carrier recently removed Nokia from its prominent vendor list and decided to begin removing and replacing all of Nokia’s equipment and services dating back to its 4G LTE network footprint. That decision has left Ericsson and Samsung to effectively split Verizon’s RAN contracts going forward.

That decision was significant for Verizon as its in the midst of a 5G coverage battle against rivals AT&T and T-Mobile US. Both of those carriers are now claiming “nationwide” 5G coverage on the back of their respective low-band spectrum holdings. Verizon, on the other hand, is continuing to lean heavily on its mmWave spectrum holdings to power its 5G network. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg last week said the carrier remained on track to have 5G coverage in 60 markets by year-end, though remained coy on Verizon’s “nationwide” 5G coverage plans, noting only that it was “scaling” toward that expansion goal.

Ericsson is also working with a handful of North American operators on their 5G plans, including AT&T, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Bell Canada, and Rogers. The vendor said it could not comment on how the new facility will impact its work with other operators.

Ericsson initiated the move toward U.S. production facilities in 2018. Niklas Heuveldop, president and CEO of Ericsson North America, at that time told SDxCentral that the plan puts company resources and innovation closer to important customers in one of Ericsson’s largest markets. He noted that the U.S. had accounted for at least 25% of the vendor’s overall sales for the previous 7 years.

“I’ve been impressed with the activity in the U.S., especially with IoT and industrial IoT,” Heuveldop told SDxCentral. “And there’s a lot of excitement in the investment community as well. The U.S. is on fire.”

Ericsson initially worked with manufacturing partner Jabil to construct equipment at a Jabil facility in St. Petersburg, Florida. That location began producing radio equipment for the U.S. market by the end of 2018. Ericsson explained earlier this year that it was moving all production to its Lewisville facility.

The location also puts it near a production facility for antenna-maker Kathrein, which Ericsson acquired last year, and less than 20 miles from its North America headquarters in Plano, Texas. The vendor also has a tower training facility in Lewisville, and it announced plans to open a software development center alongside an ASIC design center in Austin, Texas.

CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to note that Verizon CTO Kyle Malady received the new Ericsson equipment at Verizon's headquarters in New Jersey and did not travel to the Ericsson facility to pick up the equipment.