Ericsson added two feathers to its 5G bow this week by trumpeting that its equipment is supporting live 5G rollouts in Spain and Romania. The Sweden-based vendor said it is now involved in 11 live 5G networks across four continents, and has publicly announced 23 5G contracts with named carriers.

Ericsson confirmed that Vodafone Spain is using the Ericsson Radio System in the cities of La Coruña and Vigo, operating in the 3.7 GHz band. The Spanish Vodafone unit launched commercial 5G services in 15 cities on June 15, and previously indicated it was working with Ericsson and Huawei on 5G trials.

Vodafone and Ericsson recently joined forces in Portugal and Spain to display the capabilities of the vendor’s virtualized 5G core network technology and how it can support mobile roaming between 5G networks in two different countries.

Ericsson also flagged its involvement in the launch of 5G services by Digi, the brand of Romanian carrier RCS&RDS. 5G services are initially available only in the busiest parts of Bucharest, and are based on the 5G New Radio Non-Standalone (5G NR NSA) specification. More base stations are to be activated in Bucharest and the city of Cluj-Napoca in the coming months. Although Romania will not hold its auction of 5G-enabling spectrum until the fourth quarter of 2019, Digi already has access to spectrum within the 3.6-3.8 GHz band.

However, Digi is clearly keeping its 5G technology options open: the carrier indicated that it has tested 5G kit from Huawei, and it plans to deploy the equipment in other cities in early-July 2019. It also aims to test and deploy Nokia kit during 2019 and will use equipment from all three vendors to underpin its 5G offering.

Ed Gubbins, principal analyst at GlobalData, has highlighted the extremely competitive nature of the 5G radio access network (RAN) market in the 5G NR NSA phase, but indicated that vendors could have the opportunity to grab more market share once carriers move to 5G NR Standalone (SA) and a full 5G core. Then, carriers will be less dependent on their incumbent 4G network partners since 5G NR SA does not require an anchor in the LTE network.

Nokia this week said it has 43 commercial 5G deals with carriers and is involved in more than 100 5G-related customer engagements. Its latest engagement is with Zain Saudi Arabia (KSA), which has signed a three-year deal with Nokia involving the rollout of “thousands of 5G sites.” In February 2019, Zain KSA also signed a contract with Huawei to collaborate on the expansion of its 5G and IoT ecosystems. Not to be left out, in February 2018 Zain Group signed an MoU with Ericsson “to create a roadmap to 5G.”

Also this week, Huawei said it has won 50 5G commercial contracts and shipped more than 150,000 base stations. ZTE said it has now secured 25 commercial 5G contracts and committed to 5G partnerships with 60 carriers around the world.

Samsung Electronics, meanwhile, appears to be gaining traction: a May report from Dell’Oro said Huawei and Samsung recorded the largest overall RAN revenue share gains year on year in the first quarter of 2019. The research firm noted that faster than expected uptake of Massive MIMO and 5G NR added fuel to the upswing that began in the second half of 2018.