VodafoneThree has kicked off the rollout of Ericsson's latest dual-mode 5G Core within its UK mobile network.

The telecoms operator announced this week that it has gone live with its upgraded cloud-native 5G Core network as part of a SEK 12.5 billion ($1.3bn) project between the two companies.

For VodafoneThree, it's the latest network upgrades since the company completed its merger last year, and are part of the carrier's £11 billion ($14.68bn) network investment.

These upgrades come as VodafoneThree steps up its effort to offer network slicing services via its 5G Standalone (5G SA) network, as detailed in the launch of its SuperMobile 5G+ national network slice service earlier this month.

During that announcement, VodafoneThree pledged that this service will guarantee minimum download speeds of 15Mbps when using 5G SA, or customers can leave without a fee.

Ericsson was initially contracted by VodafoneThree last year to support increasing data demand. According to Ericsson, it's the sole vendor for the carrier's nationwide core network, while it has the "significant majority" of its radio access network (RAN).

"The activation of our new cloud-native 5G core network is a major milestone in our journey to build the UK’s best network," said Hrvoje Jerkovic, network engineering director at VodafoneThree.

"Following the successful integration of our radio networks earlier this year, we are now taking the next step by creating a single, highly advanced core network that will underpin the future of connectivity for consumers and businesses across the UK."

Ericsson notes that its core network has been designed to deliver a capacity of 9Tbps, which it claims will be one of Europe’s largest mobile packet cores to support the growing data needs of customers across services such as streaming, gaming, and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) home broadband.

As for the dual-mode 5G Core, it unifies 4G and 5G core functions onto a single cloud-native platform, and is deployed on the vendor's Cloud Native Infrastructure Solution (CNIS).

Ericsson said this makes it a solid foundation for VodafoneThree to enable its various slicing services, providing scalable capacity, increased stability and lower latency, plus operational agility.

Of course VodafoneThree isn't just working with Ericsson, the telco also works with Finnish vendor Nokia. Just last week, the telco announced the duo has paired to activate the first 100 advanced 5G radio sites on Vodafone's UK network.