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  "description": "If Ericsson falls behind China, ‘our reason to exist is very limited’",
  "path": "/ericsson-ceo-calls-for-increased-u-s-eu-relations-to-counter-china/",
  "publishedAt": "2025-08-21T23:14:13.000Z",
  "site": "https://broadbandbreakfast.com",
  "tags": [
    "Broadband Breakfast on October 22, 2025 - Europe’s Broadband and Tech EnvironmentCan Europe jump start its tech industry?Broadband BreakfastBroadband Breakfast",
    "_****There's a whole community behind your FREE membership...****_",
    "Join the Community!",
    "_as many_",
    "_U.S. spectrum pipeline_",
    "_to monetize_"
  ],
  "textContent": "ASPEN, Colo, August 21, 2025 – Ericsson CEO **Börje Ekholm** did not mince words when he declared that the U.S. must work with its allies if it hopes to counter the rise in Chinese next-generation telecommunications.\n\nBroadband Breakfast on October 22, 2025 - Europe’s Broadband and Tech EnvironmentCan Europe jump start its tech industry?Broadband BreakfastBroadband Breakfast\n\n“Even the U.S., how large it is, is not large enough to be on its own,” Ekholm said. “We need to work together – the U.S., Europe, like-minded countries, India, Japan. That’s the best way for us.”\n\nEkholm’s words came Tuesday at Aspen’s annual Telecommunications Policy Institute. The long-time executive praised the U.S.-EU partnership, though had critiques for both nations.\n\n\n\n_****There's a whole community behind your FREE membership...****_\n\n Join the Community! \n\n“Europe has dramatically underperformed the U.S. in the last 50 years,” he explained. “American companies invest 50 to 100 percent more in R&D and [capital expenditures] compared to European companies…Europe is becoming an open-air museum still using paper tickets because connectivity is so bad.”\n\nDespite this, he warned that severing relations with Europe would only harm American interests. Both countries need each other's markets and innovations.\n\n“Saying now that we should throw it overboard I think seems very premature and very simplistic,” he said.\n\n### _He said Huawei and ZTE are Ericsson's fiercest competitors_\n\nEkholm described Chinese rivals Huawei and ZTE as Ericsson’s fiercest competitors, pointing to their “hypercompetitive” approach and Beijing’s industrial policies that prioritize telecom.\n\nChina has deployed about 4 million 5G standalone base stations — more than 10 times _as many_ as the U.S. That dense network is already powering robotics, drones and factory automation.\n\n“When you start to get that scale, you build the local ecosystem that becomes very competitive,” he said. “Huawei is part of a much bigger ecosystem.”\n\nDespite China’s 5G dominance, Ekholm said that the U.S. remains Ericsson’s most important market. He also noted that the company was investing heavily in India.\n\n“The way they have digitalized society around the 4G network is second to none,” he said. “So India is really important.”\n\nOne of Ericsson’s key recommendations to increase U.S. competitiveness was to strengthen the _U.S. spectrum pipeline_. He recommended that the U.S. take a similar approach with 6G spectrum as it did with 4G spectrum.\n\n“If you want to have a humanoid or a robot or self-driving vehicle that’s gonna be relying on connectivity, it has to be truly reliable,” he said. “It’s going to require reliable connectivity and that requires spectrum.”\n\nHe also questioned whether the Western market could support more than three bandwidths.\n\n“The whole Western ecosystem actually depends on having a number of Western bandwidths as well,” he said. “I’m not sure the Western ecosystem is large enough to support three.”\n\n###  _EU's AI Act a 'wet blanket on innovation'_\n\nEkholm also spoke about artificial intelligence’s impact on network’s spectrum needs, noting that some AI-optimized networks were using 10 percent less spectrum. He praised the U.S.’s approach to regulating artificial intelligence, while calling the EU’s AI Act a “wet blanket on innovation.”\n\nHe briefly touched on some operator’s struggles _to monetize_ 5G, noting that they have struggled to monetize it because most carriers have deployed non-standalone networks that extend 4G capacity without delivering new features.\n\n“It’s very hard to monetize something you don’t have,” he said.\n\nWhen asked by _Broadband Breakfast_ why the U.S. doesn’t have a global telecommunications equipment manufacturer, Ekholm said he wasn’t sure.\n\n“I don’t know why the U.S. doesn’t have a domestic telecom company in that sense,” he said. “You used to have a couple.”",
  "title": "Ericsson CEO Calls for Increased U.S.–EU Relations to Counter China",
  "updatedAt": "2026-03-11T05:47:17.279Z"
}