- https://www.snstelecom.com/private5gEricsson completed an Airbus private 5G deployment in its Hamburg plant
- The aerospace firm plans to complete its deployment of private 5G in Toulouse in 2026 and will use the technology in many of its international facilities
- Airbus has been “remarkably consistent” with its private cellular plans, according to analyst Roy Chua
European commercial aircraft manufacturer Airbus has deployed private 5G in its plant in Hamburg, Germany, and is currently rolling out the same kind of network with Ericsson in its factory in Toulouse, France. This is part of an industrial digitalization strategy that will see private 5G take off in Airbus facilities in Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States through 2026 and the coming years.
The private 5G strategy is aimed at improving manufacturing automation, traceability and operational efficiency at the Airbus plants. Ericsson noted in a release that the network’s modular architecture and API-driven interfaces simplified onboarding into Airbus’ existing systems, accelerating time-to-value and reinforcing robust security controls.
Airbus said in June 2024 that it had already deployed private 5G in its Montoir-de-Bretagne plant and across its final assembly line in Toulouse. “All outdoor or dense and complex areas at the A350 final assembly line in Toulouse are now connected to this network,” the company said at the time.
This follows on Airbus’ millimeter wave-based (mmWave) private 5G testing in 2021, according to AvidThink principal Roy Chua. “I’m not sure if that’s still a focus area,” the analyst commented.
"We’ve been tracking Airbus’ multi-campus private network deployment project in our database since 2021 when production-grade private LTE infrastructure was deployed using Band 38/n38 (2.6 GHz) spectrum at the aerospace giant’s French factories (private 5G experimentation also took place in other bands)," SNS Telecom & IT 5G research director, Asad Khan said.
"The recent press release from Ericsson essentially indicates a transition from experimentation to production-grade use in Hamburg and an ongoing standalone 5G upgrade in Toulouse, where Airbus has acquired authorization from France's telecommunications regulator ARCEP (Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Posts) to use Band n77 (3.9-4.0 GHz) spectrum at its Blagnac and Colomiers sites," Khan noted.
5G in the sky
“Airbus's 5G plans have been remarkably consistent with their previous announcements on their private 4G LTE/5G roadmap that started back in 2018 with private LTE,” Chua said. “Early deployments that were covered in 2021 included private LTE networks at European manufacturing hubs in France, Germany and sites in Spain.”
Khan noted that Airbus has also used Fircell’s private 5G solution for experimentation purposes, outside of Ericsson as its main private cellular supplier.
All of this contrasts with the approach of Airbus’ U.S. rival Boeing, which has been much more reticent about any private network plans, be they 4G or 5G. While the company is using Verizon 5G to improve aircraft maintenance with drones at Hickham air base in Pearl Harbor, it has not announced any private 5G effort publicly yet.
The continuing Airbus deal will be good news for the Swedish vendor on the active 5G private network front. Nokia is the largest Western vendor for private networks, according to Dell’Oro Group, with Ericsson following its Finnish rival.