Ericsson pulls mmWave radio production out of Texas for Estonia

Ericsson has stopped manufacturing millimeter-wave radios at its 5G smart factory in Lewisville, Texas, and consolidated that production at its site in Estonia, six years after the plant opened with mmWave street macros for Verizon as its flagship output.

The Swedish vendor confirmed the move in a statement: "Production of the mmWave radio products previously manufactured at our factory in Lewisville, Texas, was consolidated at our manufacturing site in Estonia. This was a production-footprint decision and does not represent a discontinuation of Ericsson's mmWave portfolio."

Ericsson added that it "continuously adapts its global manufacturing footprint based on customer requirements, demand and operational efficiency" and declined to disclose product-specific volumes, customer demand levels or individual delivery arrangements. The company said it has "a globally diversified and flexible supply chain" and "continuously assess[es] trade, tariff developments."

What does the move say about US mmWave demand?

The company's own framing invites a caveat. Shipping radios from Europe to the US would presumably incur tariff costs. The decision suggests Ericsson has calculated that the remaining volumes are small enough that manufacturing outside the US is more cost-effective despite those duties. That arithmetic points to one conclusion: US carrier demand for Ericsson's mmWave radios has thinned.

The retreat also reflects a broader cooling toward mmWave in the US market. When 5G first rolled out, high-band spectrum was expected to carry a much larger share of mobile broadband traffic. That forecast did not hold.

Ericsson supplies radio access network equipment to all three nationwide US carriers — AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Verizon was the most committed to mmWave spectrum for 5G, but it has since shifted its wide-area macro deployments to C-band midband spectrum.

Is mmWave finding a second life?

Verizon is now reevaluating mmWave for fixed wireless access. On the carrier's latest investor call, CEO Dan Schulman flagged a "technological breakthrough" using frequencies that could extend the availability of 1Gbit/s broadband to 10 to 15 million more premises — roughly the household count of a mid-sized European country, a scale that would materially expand Verizon's FWA addressable market if the claim holds.

The claim has yet to be stress-tested commercially. One warning sign already surfaced: UK mmWave supplier CBNG went out of business after Verizon decided not to use its 39GHz radio product for 5G FWA, Light Reading reported.

Speaking at the Brooklyn AI-Native 6G Summit this week, Verizon CTO Yago Tenorio said mmWave will play the same role in 6G as it does in 5G — providing capacity in hotspots such as stadiums.

"The experience our customers have in a stadium is linked to the availability and how you manage your mmWave spectrum more than it is related to anything else," Tenorio said. "Apart from that, and my boss was very clear at the earnings call last week, we believe that we found a second life for mmWave to fuel our FWA ambitions."

He also said Verizon has tested mmWave for sensing and drone detection in separate trials with Nokia and Qualcomm — an early, unproven adjacency rather than a revenue line.

A Verizon spokesperson said in an emailed response: "We are continuing to explore new ways to extend the reach and utility of our millimeter wave deployment — particularly for high-density environments like multi-dwelling units (MDUs). mmWave remains an active, business-as-usual asset for our mobile network, and expanding its role into targeted broadband solutions is a natural progression."

How much is at stake at Lewisville?

Ericsson invested $150 million in the Lewisville factory and employs about 500 people there — roughly $300,000 of capital per job, a measure of how capital-intensive advanced radio manufacturing is. The plant opened in 2020 specifically to make products for US customers, and mmWave radios were the first products to roll off its line. Verizon was the first carrier to receive a 5G basestation built at the plant, a mmWave "street macro" solution.

The production shift sits uneasily alongside a wider Nordic push into US manufacturing. Ericsson and its Finnish rival Nokia have both increased investment in US factories and R&D as the first and second Trump administrations pressed industries to build products domestically. Tariffs imposed last year made local manufacturing more of a business imperative — a pressure that, in Ericsson's mmWave case, was not enough to offset shrinking volumes.

Ericsson says it will keep supporting customers with mmWave solutions from its diversified supply chain. Whether Lewisville retains its 500-strong workforce as production lines are retooled, the company has not said.