Interesting piece. I should probably check how Ericsson is doing. The little I’ve had time to look into the demand for data centers today would suggest that Ericsson is strongly in the lead when it comes to traditional radios.
| Area | Ericsson | Nokia | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Massive MIMO breadth | Very strong | Very strong | Close |
| 32T/32R / 64T/64R | Strong | Strong | Close |
| FDD Massive MIMO | Strong | Strong | Close |
| TDD Massive MIMO | Strong | Strong | Close |
| Multi-band radios | Very strong | Very strong | Close |
| Energy efficiency | Very strong | Very strong | Ericsson advantage, based on available comparisons |
| Radio size/weight | Very strong | Strong/very strong | Ericsson advantage |
| RF performance / coverage features | Very strong | Very strong | Close |
| Beamforming | Very strong | Very strong | Close |
| Custom silicon | Ericsson Silicon | ReefShark | Different approaches; both strong |
| Radio + silicon co-design | Very strong | Very strong | Close |
| AI acceleration in radio | Already integrated into newer radios | AI-RAN/accelerated platforms | Different approaches |
| Open RAN readiness | Strong | Strong | Close |
| RAN Compute/baseband | Very strong | Very strong | Close |
| Cloud RAN | Strong | Strong | Close |
| AI-RAN | Strong | Very strong current push | Too early for a winner |
| Installed 5G RAN footprint | Larger | Large | Ericsson advantage |
| 5G market position outside China | Larger | Large | Ericsson advantage |
Still, exciting times ahead, because Nokia reportedly no longer connects people, but intelligence. Ericsson lacks switches, routers, and data center exposure. Nokia has all of those, plus SR Linux, which NVIDIA has already partially adopted. Software-upgradable radios are a revolution on the mobile side, but what is an end-to-end intelligent network in the AI era? If I were to describe the situation through a card game, as an owner it feels like I have quite a few trumps in my hand and the game has already been going on for a while. Of course, one can still lose this, so hopefully the engineers and management are on their toes this time.
In my opinion, the 5G upgrade cycle is something to keep an eye on. According to the article you linked (and other general buzz), operators are going to transition to the software era and a subscription model, where high-margin money is continuously pumped out of them in the name of the common good. If Nokia’s 5G conquers territories in the 5G upgrade cycle, then we’ll know the sentiment regarding Nokia’s 6G direction. At least if/when AI and intelligent networks built with AI in mind become a hot potato and Nokia’s approach turns out to be more correct than Ericsson’s.
I can’t help repeating how big of a deal I think Nokia’s end-to-end product families and penetration into data centers are for the future. And the fact that operations have been developed for years in line with what the big boys say is going to happen.
I wasn’t inspired to post by an up day, but rather an up-day buzz (euphoria). Heh-heh. 
Mostly, I just hope there are still opportunities to load up cheaply.