United Kingdom-based operator Virgin Media O2 is lined up to be one of the first European operators to trial Ericsson’s cloud radio access network (RAN) product, which is part of a broader network expansion and deployment agreement. The deal comes as Ericsson continues to battle its Nordic neighbor Nokia for the No. 2 spot in global telecom equipment sales.

The broader agreement calls for Ericsson to provide equipment for Virgin Media O2’s network across the U.K. This includes Ericsson’s quad-technology baseband and multi-band 5G massive multiple-input/multiple-output radio Air 3258 platform.

Ericsson initially unveiled that platform in early 2021. It’s designed to provide a smaller footprint and energy consumption compared to previous iterations.

More specific details include small cell deployments in larger cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Belfast. These will support more capacity and higher speeds for dense urban areas.

Virgin Media O2 will also tap into Ericsson’s Cloud RAN platform that lashes in cloud-native and open network technologies. Ericsson unveiled its Cloud RAN initiative in late 2020, with a product launch in 2021. It allows for more automation and support for virtualized RAN (vRAN), specifically the centralized unit (CU) and distributed unit (DU), to run on commoditized x86-based hardware.

The vendor last year partnered with Intel to further optimize the performance and efficiency aspects of the platform.

Dan Rodriguez, corporate VP and GM for Intel’s Network Platforms Group, at that time explained that from a high level, the work will “drive virtualization into the radio access network, essentially looking to provide the cloud-like scale and agility commonly found in the world’s data centers into the radio access network.”

“We’re working together to explore technology not only in the near term, but also the over the three-to-five-year period to deliver solutions that communication service providers desire,” Rodriguez said. “You can think about how we’re going to be working on not only performance, but greater sustainability in the network, in addition to partnering with communication service providers on how to deliver greater levels of automation and [total cost of ownership] in this portion of the network.”

Despite those efforts, analysts have critiqued Ericsson’s Cloud RAN. Gartner recently labeled Ericsson as the leading 5G network infrastructure vendor, but questioned its cloud work.

“Although Ericsson launched its Cloud RAN (vRAN) portfolio in 2020 and enhanced it in 2021, its priorities are incumbent 4G/5G [communication service provider] clients and the interoperability assurance with its own purpose-built [baseband unit] by Ericsson Cloud Link,” Gartner noted in the Magic Quadrant report. “Ericsson’s approach to open RAN fronthaul multivendor integration is conservative and is based on Ericsson’s perception of the market and technology both being at a low level of readiness.”

Ericsson has been a long-time vendor for Virgin Media O2. It provided its Cloud Packet Core, Cloud Unified Data Management and Policy, 5G New Radio (NR) RAN and baseband products, and managed services to the carrier’s initial 5G launch in 2019, and provided updates to the network the following year.

Virgin Media O2 has also been working with other vendors on its next-generation network plans. The carrier last year signed a deal with NEC and Rakuten Symphony to conduct joint open RAN field trial across a handful of live sites on the carrier’s commercial network.

The extended work comes as a new Dell’Oro Group report indicated Ericsson exited 2022 just behind Nokia in worldwide telecom equipment sales. Both were significantly behind China-based rival Huawei, and well ahead of ZTE, Cisco, Samsung, and Ciena.

Taking out sales within China, Ericsson was tied for No. 2 with Huawei, both holding 18% of the market. Nokia controlled 20% of the telecom equipment market outside of China.

Ericsson has admittedly been struggling to gain market share despite geopolitical tailwinds that have limited the reach of China-based vendors in many Western countries. Ericsson President and CEO Börje Ekholm explained to investors during the vendor’s most recent earnings call that operational headwinds increased in Q4, with “operators slowing the pace on network investments and that includes front-runner customers in many markets.”

Nokia, by comparison, has provided a more upbeat view of the market. CEO Pekka Lundmark told a press event just ahead of the MWC Barcelona 2023 show that he was confident in Nokia gaining market share as “geopolitical tailwinds continue to favor us.”