Ericsson has partnered with Deutsche Telekom to achieve the first 5G voice over new radio (VoNR) call on an end-to-end multivendor network. The trial, which included several other technology partners, saw Ericsson provide the 5G backbone that enabled the technology breakthrough.

Voice over New Radio (VoNR) is set to play a key role in enhancing mobile voice quality, as well as enabling new immersive video and extended reality services in coming years. The demo, which took place on 5G standalone network infrastructure in test mode at DT’s innovation lab in Warsaw, Poland, also successfully showcased 5G voice and 5G data services running in parallel.

The achievement is a step towards the commercial launch of superior quality 5G voice services on cloud-native 5G standalone networks, offering improved HD voice+ speech quality, improved video calling quality and the opportunity to serve both 5G voice and 5G data services simultaneously. 5G VoNR is expected to boost new revenue opportunities such as immersive video conferencing and 5G interactive calling through augmented or virtual reality technologies.