Samsung Electronics today announced that it has been selected by Vodafone Romania to deploy its fully virtualized RAN software (vRAN) and radio solutions for the Open RAN rollout across Romania. This commercial deployment will cover major urban cities in Romania to deliver high-quality, stable commercial network services to Vodafone’s customers.

Samsung will provide its vRAN solutions supporting multi-RAT, automation solutions and Open RAN-compliant triple-band radios as well as 5G Massive MIMO radios. Samsung’s triple-band radio combines 700MHz, 800MHZ and 900MHz frequency bands into one compact radio that provides multi-spectrum coverage for 2G, 4G and 5G, enabling increased network capacity, greater flexibility and a smaller footprint.

Samsung’s software-based vRAN solution supports multiple generations of network technologies in a single platform — including 2G — which is an important spectrum for Internet of Small Things (IoST), machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and voice communications for roaming services in Europe.

“The momentum behind Open RAN technologies, in Vodafone and amongst our partners, is building,” said Alberto Ripepi, Chief Network Officer at Vodafone Group. “As new technologies like generative AI take root and are embedded within businesses, factories, and healthcare practices, they will require intelligence-based powerful networks to support them. Open RAN is designed to do just that.”

“As our collaboration with Vodafone continues to make strides across Europe, this rollout in Romania will mark a significant milestone that underscores our dedication to network innovation,” said Woojune Kim, President and Head of Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Our pioneering network solutions will propel Vodafone Romania’s transformation journey, providing a flexible and powerful way to realize the full potential of Open RAN. We look forward to combining our diverse experiences together to reshape the future of connectivity.”

This announcement follows Samsung’s pilot project with Vodafone last year in Romania. The companies completed the first 4G calls over shared commercial Open RAN in Romania’s rural areas. Samsung is collaborating with Vodafone to support its Open RAN initiative in both rural and urban areas of Romania, helping the operator transition to an open network architecture.

Since switching on the U.K.’s first 5G Open RAN site in 2022, Vodafone and Samsung have been validating Open RAN technology in a brownfield, urban environment, reaching KPIs that matched or exceeded legacy kit. Making continuous progress in Europe, back in August 2023, the companies announced their massive Open RAN rollout in the U.K., a key stage in Vodafone’s plan to equip 30% of all its European sites with Open RAN by 2030.

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions, including chipsets, radios and cores. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio, from vRAN 3.0, Open RAN, Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company currently provides network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

Field trials were jointly carried out on the sites — located in Tamworth and the Peak District, England — since the start of this year. They followed successful lab tests conducted in October 2021, validating the capability and performance of Samsung’s 4G and 5G solutions on Virgin Media O2’s commercial network.

In addition, these field tests demonstrated interoperability between Virgin Media O2’s 2G/3G/4G networks and Samsung’s latest 4G and 5G solutions, and validated use of Samsung’s Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) capabilities, should they be required.

Samsung provided its latest network solutions for trials — including 4G radios, 5G Massive MIMO radios and baseband units. The solutions cover a wide range of Virgin Media O2’s spectrum holdings, from low- to mid-band (800MHz, 2.1GHz and 3.5GHz). Specifically, Samsung delivered its 5G 64T64R Massive MIMO radios for the 3.5GHz spectrum, a major 5G spectrum band for the operator’s network.

Samsung’s 5G 64T64R Massive MIMO radios are commercially deployed on a large scale in global markets, currently providing mobile service to millions of customers. This solution, in combination with Samsung’s baseband unit, will deliver improved coverage and higher data capacity to enhance 5G customer mobile experiences.

The Samsung radio solution used for this trial can also be O-RAN compliant with some configuration changes and additional support, making it ready to leverage the multiple benefits of the new technology in the future.

“Samsung is excited to extend our network collaboration with Virgin Media O2 in the U.K., advancing from lab trials to now delivering 4G and 5G in commercial networks out in the field,” said Francis BJ Chun, President and CEO, Samsung Electronics U.K. “We look forward to playing a major part of the diversification of the network equipment supply chain in the U.K. market.”

“We are pleased to build on our previous collaboration with Samsung, delivering another 5G milestone in our push to developing Open RAN technologies,” said Jeanie York, Chief Technology Officer at Virgin Media O2. “We will continue our collaborative efforts with Samsung to explore the possibilities of 5G and push the technology further to deliver superior end-user experiences for our customers.”

Open RAN technology has been at the forefront of Virgin Media O2’s network infrastructure strategy for over two years, with its first trials announced in early 2020.

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from fully virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

The CTO’s Choice Award is selected by a panel of industry experts comprised of 21 CTOs from leading mobile network operators around the globe. Chosen among the six winners in the Best Mobile Technology category — recognizing distinguished leaders in networks and technology — this is the highest recognition at the prestigious industry awards and a top honor in the global telco industry.

“We are honored that Samsung Networks’ fully-virtualized 5G RAN was recognized as the supreme champion with the CTO’s Choice Award, representing our dedicated efforts in network advancement,” said Junehee Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of R&D, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung believes vRAN is a powerful enabler for network transformation and will pave the path towards next-generation networks. As a global leader in virtualization with successful commercialization experiences, we continue to lead the journey, redefining what is possible for 5G network innovation.”

“In one of the most fiercely contested categories in the GLOMOs, the judges felt that the Samsung entry showed innovation in one of the most exciting parts of the market,” said Shaun Collins, Chair of the Judges, GLOMO Awards (Executive Chairman, CCS Insight). “It was clear the 21 carrier CTOs also thought that and selected Samsung’s entry for the prestigious CTO Choice Award this year.”

This award is backed by Samsung’s commercial track record of vRAN deployments in wide-scale in North America, Europe and Asia. Samsung delivered its 5G vRAN solutions for a large-scale commercial network service in the United States that launched in December 2020, providing reliable mobile services to millions of users. The company was also the world’s first in commercializing 5G 64T64R Massive MIMO radios on 5G vRAN using C-band spectrum (3.5GHz).

With a fully disaggregated architecture, Samsung’s vRAN runs on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers, offering features and performance that are equivalent to traditional hardware-based equipment. The company’s vRAN brings reliability, scalability and flexibility to mobile operators’ networks.

For detailed information on Samsung’s vRAN and Open RAN leadership, please refer to the recent announcement.

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from fully virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

Samsung is the global leader in the fully-virtualized 5G RAN market.¹ The company’s achievement was driven by its 5G vRAN solution, which has been deployed around the world, making Samsung the only major network vendor to have delivered fully-virtualized commercial RAN deployments in North America, Europe and Asia.

Samsung delivered its 5G vRAN solutions for a large-scale commercial network service in the U.S. that launched in December 2020, providing reliable mobile services to millions of users. The company continues to expand its 5G vRAN footprint, with recent milestones including:

• Achieved 2.25Gbps on a single user device with dual connectivity using vRAN and Massive MIMO radios on C-band spectrum in June 2021
• Successfully launched commercial vRAN over C-band using 64T64R Massive MIMO radios in the U.S. in January 2022
• Switched on the UK’s first 5G Open RAN site and the world’s first 5G Standalone (SA) Open RAN site in Japan — both powered by Samsung’s vRAN

Samsung’s commercially-proven network solutions range from traditional RAN to virtualized RAN to Open RAN — supporting operators’ 5G path of choice. To advance virtualization and openness, Samsung’s 5G vRAN splits the baseband functions into a fully disaggregated virtualized Distributed Unit (vDU) and virtualized Central Unit (vCU). The key to this disaggregated architecture is that the RAN software is separated from customized hardware and runs on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers. Samsung’s vRAN also supports O-RAN specifications, “opening up” interfaces between baseband unit and radios, allowing integration from different vendors.

“While many vendors claim they support Open RAN by starting with the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), in reality, this is still far from commercialization in large-scale networks and sidesteps the most important part of the Open RAN revolution — which starts from the disaggregation of hardware and software in the baseband, and also involves opening of the fronthaul,” said Woojune Kim, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics.

Samsung’s vRAN solution fully disaggregates the hardware and software in the baseband, and can support the open fronthaul interface. The company’s O-RAN compliant 5G vRAN solutions are deployed commercially in Japan and U.K. networks, offering seamless integration with other vendors’ radios.

Added Kim: “What differentiates Samsung is a combination of consistent innovation and large-scale commercial experience with leading Tier One operators around the world. This has helped us lead the advancement of vRAN and Open RAN beyond lab tests and field trials, and into major commercial markets. Now, the creation of this vRAN ecosystem will drive innovation to the next level, unlocking numerous opportunities ahead for network industry players and helping operators scale their businesses.”

Innovating Together for Success

As a pioneer and leader in vRAN technology, Samsung has brought together various companies for collaboration in this ecosystem — starting with Dell, HPE, Intel, Red Hat and Wind River. Samsung has tested and validated interoperability with each company platform, which collectively holds a comprehensive view of the network evolution at every step of the development process. The ecosystem will help in the preparation for commercial deployments, including conducting various activities in Samsung’s lab — aligning solution roadmaps from multiple vendors, fostering a fully interoperable approach to vRAN and leading the design process of an end-to-end vRAN solution.

Companies joining this vRAN ecosystem include:

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies’ telecom solutions bolster the open ecosystem and help communications service providers (CSPs) transform to cloud-native vRAN networks. Samsung’s vRAN solution, combined with Dell’s carrier-grade, telecom infrastructure, will help CSPs around the globe to affordably build and deploy open networks. Dell’s global supply chain and telecom services seamlessly support network deployments of any scale.

Dennis Hoffman, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Dell Technologies Telecom Systems Business said, “Samsung’s commitment to advancing the vRAN ecosystem will foster new innovative services and business opportunities for communications service providers and enterprises. Our collaboration with Samsung and other partners is helping to develop an open ecosystem of technologies that can deliver the performance and reliability network operators demand.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

HPE continues a legacy of over 30 years of experience in the telecom industry. More than 300 telco customers across 160 countries take advantage of HPE’s open telco solutions, offered through the HPE Communications Technology Group (CTG), to evolve to a 5G ready, cloud-native, service-based architecture. As the global edge-to-cloud company, HPE’s experience in enterprise IT and hybrid cloud helps deliver a cloud transformation and secure, carrier-grade, standards-based infrastructure to telecommunications networks.

Phillip Cutrone, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Global OEM & Service Providers, at HPE said, “HPE looks forward to continuing our longstanding collaboration with Samsung by welcoming a new opportunity to deliver optimized 5G solutions for our customers. By using HPE ProLiant servers, the world’s trusted servers, to deliver highly dense, small form factor RAN workload-optimized compute platforms, HPE is playing a pivotal role in enabling the Samsung vRAN ecosystem that will further advance 5G experiences.”

Intel

Samsung has teamed up with Intel to support global service providers in virtualizing their 5G RAN and driving new services innovation based on Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Samsung recently announced the deployment of its fully virtualized, cloud-native vRAN solution to support the UK’s first 5G Open RAN network, as well as 5G vRAN in Japan. Both Intel and Samsung have optimized their solutions to deliver outstanding virtualized performance and flexibility to meet service provider requirements around the world.

Cristina Rodriguez, Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Access Network Division at Intel said, “The shift to virtualized RAN is one of the biggest transformations impacting the industry today. Intel’s collaboration with Samsung illustrates the strength of software-defined solutions in delivering flexibility and scalability in real world deployments.”

Red Hat

Red Hat is collaborating with Samsung to deliver 5G network solutions built on Red Hat’s proven open hybrid cloud portfolio, including Red Hat OpenShift – the industry’s most comprehensive enterprise Kubernetes platform. With this collaboration, Samsung and Red Hat are helping service providers drive 5G adoption and realize the benefits of vRAN. Samsung’s 5G vRAN solutions coupled with Red Hat’s open source, cloud-native solutions aim to extend 5G-based use cases by supporting consistent horizontal platforms from the core to the edge for customers to more easily deploy vRAN.

Darrell Jordan-Smith, Senior Vice President, TME & Industries at Red Hat said, “Red Hat is committed to building a bridge for customers to embrace RAN transformation, connecting business needs with the underlying technologies through an open ecosystem of partners. At the heart of the 5G and RAN evolution is cloud-native, open source innovation that helps form the foundation for future connectivity. Samsung’s leading 5G network solutions powered by Red Hat hybrid cloud technology offers service providers and their customers a flexible, scalable and reliable solution to successfully implement RAN at the edge, improving business agility to respond to opportunities more rapidly.”

Wind River

Wind River Studio provides a fully cloud-native, Kubernetes- and container-based architecture, based on open source, for the development, deployment, operations and servicing of distributed edge networks at scale. It delivers a foundation for a geographically distributed managed solution able to simplify Day 1 and Day 2 operations by providing single-pane–of-glass (SPoG), zero-touch automated management of thousands of nodes, no matter their physical location. Studio addresses the complex challenges of deploying and managing a physically distributed, cloud-native vRAN infrastructure to provide traditional RAN performance in a vRAN deployment.

Avijit Sinha, Chief Product Officer, Wind River said, “A leader in the early 5G vRAN landscape, Wind River is delivering mature production-ready offerings with Samsung based on proven Wind River Studio technology that is live in deployment with Tier One operators. Together with Samsung, Wind River can provide flexible, secure, reliable and ultra-low latency solutions that extend across the 5G cloud core and edge to support new use cases in an increasingly intelligent systems world.”

Samsung continues to expand its ecosystem with additional partners with industry-leading expertise in order to meet operator needs for more flexible and scalable networks.

¹ Based on internal analysis of third-party market size estimates

“Viettel has continued to prioritize building 5G infrastructure in key areas of the city,” said Tao Duc Thang, Deputy General Director from Viettel. “Viettel will join hands to make smart city development in Da Nang more synchronous and modern, to connect broadband in multi-dimensional and safe ways, ensuring best network infrastructure for digital government development, supporting for business and growth of Da Nang.”

With the main mission to build a digitalized society, Viettel has built 4G telecommunications infrastructure covering 97% of the Vietnamese population. The company also pioneers in providing the first 5G service in Vietnam. Up to now, 11 provinces/cities of Vietnam have 5G Viettel coverage (including Hanoi, Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, Vinh Phuc, Dong Nai, Ho Chi Minh City, Ba Ria–Vung Tau, Binh Phuoc, Thua Thien–Hue and Da Nang). People in these areas can experience 5G for free with unlimited capacity, on many 5G support devices. The 5G Viettel network in the above areas has a stable data download speed of 600-700 Mbps, the highest of up to more than 1Gbps.

For the commercial trial in Da Nang, Samsung provided its latest 4G and 5G solutions, which include its baseband unit as well as 64T64R Massive MIMO radios and radios on mid-band spectrum. Samsung’s latest baseband unit offers improved performance with industry leading capacity and throughput, while supporting both 4G and 5G technologies. The company’s 64T64R 5G Massive MIMO radio has the capability to power highly-congested and populated areas, delivering increased coverage and data speeds for enhanced 5G end-user experiences.

“We are excited to work with Viettel to bring immersive and reliable 5G services to consumers, and demonstrate Samsung’s technical leadership in Vietnam. This trial marks a big first step for the two companies’ collaborative efforts in Vietnam,” said Ho Chi Dung, Vice President, Network Business, Samsung VINA. “We look forward to supporting Viettel with a network that is ready to unlock the future of mobile connectivity in Vietnam, and that brings a new level of 5G experiences to the country’s increasing number of mobile users.”

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from fully virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

As one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators, Orange provides mobile services to 222 million users in 26 countries including Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The group plans to deploy O-RAN Alliance-compliant base stations starting with indoor and rural configurations and expand to new deployments in the coming years.

“Open RAN is a major evolution of radio access that requires deeper cooperation within the industry. With our European peers, we want to accelerate the development of Open RAN solutions that meet our needs. After the publication of common specifications, Orange’s Open RAN Integration Center will support the development and tuning of solutions from a broad variety of actors,” said Arnaud Vamparys, Senior Vice President of Radio Access Networks and Microwaves at Orange.

Samsung’s vRAN solutions can help ensure more network flexibility, greater scalability and resource efficiency for network operation by replacing dedicated baseband hardware with software elements. Additionally, Samsung’s vRAN supports both low and mid-band spectrums, as well as indoor and outdoor solutions. Samsung is the only major network vendor that has conducted vRAN commercial deployments with Tier one operators in North America, Europe and Asia.

“We are pleased to participate in Orange’s innovative laboratory,” said Woojune Kim, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Through this collaboration, we look forward to taking networks to new heights in the European market, enabling operators to offer more immersive mobile services to their users.”

By opening its Open RAN Integration Center in Châtillon, near Paris, Orange will enable the testing and deployment of networks capable of operating with innovative technologies, which will serve as the backbone of the operator’s future networks. At the center, Samsung and Orange will conduct trials to verify capabilities and performance of Samsung’s vRAN, radio and Massive MIMO radio.

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end infrastructure solutions including chipsets, radios and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from fully virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

To power immersive mobile experiences in 5G, Samsung has introduced advanced 5G solutions that include new baseband units and radios. Among these 5G radios, Massive Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) radios are one of the most attractive options for mobile operators looking to deploy or enhance their 5G networks. The massive MIMO radio is a breakthrough solution that is equipped with a lot of antennas for better coverage and more capacity than a radio. As 5G networks continue to expand around the world using mid-band spectrum, 5G Massive MIMO radios with hundreds of antennas are commonly deployed in the market to help handle the growth in mobile data traffic.

To develop these powerful 5G Massive MIMO radios, numerous tests must be conducted to inspect the products for performance and reliability. One of the tests is conducted at a special facility called an anechoic chamber. Samsung Electronics has several anechoic chambers that are used to analyze and test the antenna performance of its radios. Recently, the company opened a large anechoic chamber at its Digital City campus in Suwon, Korea in order to enhance its ability to introduce more advanced and compelling 5G solutions to its customers.

Testing in Anechoic Chambers

The term “anechoic” comes from “an-echoic”, meaning non-echoing or non-reflective in Greek. As its name suggests, this room can emulate a non-reflective environment by using special walls and ceiling and floor designs to completely absorb all reflected electromagnetic waves. This is extremely important since even a small electromagnetic wave can disrupt an accurate antenna measurement. The interior walls are built with a number of absorbers that have a pyramid shape and help to minimize interference in the shielded room. This concept is very similar to how a stealth aircraft evades radar detection by absorbing and scattering radar signals.

The chamber’s interior is also equipped with a parabolic reflector. This reflector is used to collect radio waves from a generator and re-project the waves to the 5G radios placed inside the chamber. By collecting and re-projecting the waves at different angles, the parabolic reflector can simulate long distances, making it seem as though the 5G radio were transmitting radio waves to a mobile device from a far-off location. While the size of the chamber is relative to the simulated distance, Samsung’s chambers can simulate a distance of as much as hundreds of kilometers, creating what is called a “far field condition”. To measure the accuracy of radio performance, the size of the chamber is critical.

The newly added non-reflective chamber in Samsung’s Digital City is the size of a basketball court. Beneath the reflector, the engineer looks as small as an insect!

Samsung’s anechoic chambers are also able to cover a wide range of spectrum across low, mid and high-bands. This is especially useful in evaluating 5G radio performance since 5G spans various spectrum bands. Specifically, Samsung’s facilities have the ability to test mmWave antennas, which power high-capacity 5G mobile services. The mmWave spectrum is not used in 4G technology but is crucial to supporting immersive 5G use cases due to its wide-bandwidth.

By enabling tests to be conducted using a range of spectrum, the data sets collected in this way will help Samsung’s engineers verify and analyze a very high number of radio patterns. Based on the findings, engineers are able to refine and improve 5G radio performance to deliver best-in-class solutions for mobile services.

“We are extending our capabilities by developing powerful 5G solutions with the newly added anechoic chamber,” said Seunghwan Yoon, Vice President and Head of the RF Lab at Samsung Electronics’ Networks Business. “With vigorous quality control and verification processes, we look forward to bringing the full benefits of cutting-edge 5G solutions to more users for immersive mobile experiences.”

Better, More Powerful and Reliable 5G Solutions

The establishment of anechoic chambers is part of Samsung’s ongoing efforts to provide superior, reliable 5G solutions that deliver ultra-fast connectivity to users. These chambers help Samsung develop innovative antenna systems tailored to advanced 5G solutions in a wide array of spectrum bands. By leveraging a range of tools and facilities like anechoic chambers, Samsung looks forward to delivering leading-edge 5G solutions that offer consumers and enterprises around the globe new and immersive mobile experiences.

C-Band spectrum (3.7GHz to 3.98GHz) is used in deployments to boost overall 5G capabilities, access and coverage, while CBRS (3.55GHz to 3.7GHz) opens new opportunities, such as powering private enterprise networks or bringing broadband to underserved areas. By using a dual-band radio, mobile operators no longer need to deploy two radios to provide the benefits of C-Band and CBRS. This helps reduce an operator’s footprint and lower energy consumption, while simplifying installation and operation.

The dual-band radio brings significant benefits to radio innovation. It is ultra-lightweight and compact — weighing approximately 14kg (30lbs). Plus, it is equipped with Samsung’s in-house built chipset, bringing greater flexibility by supporting 350MHz of bandwidth covering both C-Band and CBRS spectrums. Leveraging the wide bandwidth support, operators can aggregate these spectrum bands to maximize network capacity to handle high user demands.

C-Band/CBRS Dual-band 16T16R Massive MIMO Radio

“C-Band and CBRS are mid-band sweet spots that provide a perfect combination of coverage and capacity for 5G services. We are excited to introduce our latest addition to our Massive MIMO radios portfolio, a multi-band radio that offers unprecedented compactness and is lightweight,” said Wonil Roh, Senior Vice President and Head of Product Strategy, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “We are proud to expand our mid-band solutions lineup to offer flexibility and maximized network capacity to operators, and we plan to continue building optimized 5G solutions to bring the best possible value to our customers.”

vRAN Integration

This new dual-band Massive MIMO radio also integrates with Samsung’s virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN), offering greater agility to operators. By replacing dedicated baseband hardware with software elements, vRAN offers more deployment flexibility, greater scalability and improved resource efficiency in network operation. Samsung vRAN offers features and performance that are equivalent to traditional hardware-based equipment, while covering both low- and mid-band spectrums, as well as indoor and outdoor solutions. Samsung is the only major network vendor to have commercially deployed its vRAN to operators across Asia, Europe and North America.

The new radio is part of Samsung’s comprehensive portfolio of solutions for C-Band and CBRS, which include best-in-class radios that are already commercially deployed in North America. The new C-Band/CBRS Dual-band 16T16R Massive MIMO Radio will be commercially available in the second half of 2022.

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end infrastructure solutions including chipsets, radios and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from fully virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

AWS and PCS are important mid-band spectrums, offering a good mixture of coverage and capacity. By combining them into a ‘one box’ solution, mobile operators gain a simplified approach to capacity extension.

As the lightest and most compact AWS/PCS dual-band Massive MIMO radio available in the market, Samsung’s new radio stands out for its ability to deliver high output power (320W) in a small form factor. It is equipped with the company’s latest System-on-a-Chip (SoC), which is built to improve network capacity and coverage, while decreasing its power consumption and radio size. This will enable operators to reduce their radio footprint, the weight placed on towers and installation time, helping to drive faster rollouts and operational efficiency.

AWS/PCS Dual-band Massive MIMO Radio and AWS/PCS Dual-band 4T4R Radio

The AWS/PCS Dual-band Massive MIMO Radio is the company’s first 16T16R FDD dual-band Massive MIMO radio. It is now commercially available, along with Samsung’s AWS/PCS Dual-band 4T4R Radio. Samsung continues to offer a comprehensive lineup of radios covering low-band, mid-band and mmWave in North America.

“We are excited to launch a new dual-band 16T16R Massive MIMO radio, adding to our 5G radio lineup to expand our extensive portfolio of cutting-edge network solutions,” said Dong Geun Lee, Vice President and Head of H/W R&D Group, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “With Samsung’s high-performance dual-band Massive MIMO radio, which features one of the smallest footprints in the industry, operators will be able to easily boost network capacity and accelerate network rollouts.”

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end infrastructure solutions including chipsets, radios and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from fully virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

Virgin Media O2, which launched in June 2021, is a joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica in the U.K. The new business has become one of the U.K.’s largest, with 47 million connections across broadband, mobile, TV and home phone, and offers connectivity services, applications and digital solutions to tens of thousands of U.K. businesses and public sector organizations.

For the trial, Samsung will provide its advanced solutions which include its baseband unit, 5G Massive MIMO radios, as well as 4G radios on both low-band and mid-band spectrums, while being Open RAN compliant with some configuration changes and additional support in the future. The company’s latest baseband unit offers improved performance with industry leading capacity and throughput, while supporting both 4G and 5G technologies in a single unit. Moreover, Samsung’s 5G Massive MIMO radios have a slim and lightweight design, which ensures easy and quick installation for operators, as well as increased coverage and data speeds for driving enhanced 5G end-user experiences.

“With this trial, we are excited to join hands with Virgin Media O2 to demonstrate the readiness of our 5G network solutions for deployment in the U.K. and our capabilities in bringing immersive and reliable 4G and 5G mobile experiences to users,” said Woojune Kim, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “At Samsung, we are continuously enhancing mobile experiences through powerful network solutions that advance and drive 5G to new levels.”

“Vendor diversity is crucial to developing safe, secure and more efficient networks,” said Jeanie York, Chief Technology Officer at Virgin Media O2. “We look forward to undertaking these initial trials with Samsung, which is another milestone in our continued journey to provide the best possible 5G experience for our customers, as well as boosting our 4G network, as we look to upgrade the U.K.”

Julia Lopez, Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure, said, “We’re investing £250 million to put the UK at the forefront of 5G innovation so more people and businesses can benefit from improved and secure connectivity. It is fantastic to see industry supporting this push with Virgin Media O2 and Samsung working together to increase competition, resilience and choice in the 5G supply market.”

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from fully virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

About Virgin Media O2
Virgin Media O2 launched on 1 June 2021, combining the UK’s largest and most reliable mobile network with a broadband network offering the fastest widely-available broadband speeds. It is a customer-first organisation that brings a range of connectivity services together in one place with a clear mission: to upgrade the nation. Virgin Media O2 is the corporate brand of the 50:50 joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica SA, and one of the UK’s largest businesses.

Powered by Samsung’s vRAN, KDDI’s 5G network will deliver exceptional performance, enabling KDDI users to experience the full potential of 5G.

“We are delighted to extend our collaboration with Samsung and to become the first operator in Japan to use their 5G vRAN solutions, which are currently delivering superior performance in commercial networks,” said Kazuyuki Yoshimura, Chief Technology Officer of KDDI. “We believe in the power of virtualization, and this collaboration serves as a meaningful catalyst for driving the next phase of 5G innovation, and advancing our networks to offer best-in-class 5G services.”

With its latest 5G vRAN technology, Samsung brings a range of improvements to KDDI’s network. By replacing dedicated baseband hardware with software elements, vRAN offers more deployment flexibility, greater scalability and improved resource efficiency in network operation. With its cloud-native, container-based architecture, Samsung’s vRAN also simplifies end-to-end network management through automation, allowing operators to quickly introduce new services with minimal impact on deployment.

“With commercially-proven performance and reliability, our vRAN is an attractive technology option for operators — from both the deployment and operational perspectives,” said Woojune Kim, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “We are excited to mark another milestone with KDDI, following previous network collaborations that include the commercialization of 5G in 2020, and the rollout of 700MHz 5G in 2021. We look forward to our ongoing work with KDDI to bring new 5G innovations to their customers.”

Virtualized networks will play a key role in supporting KDDI’s pursuit of new 5G use cases and next-generation capabilities. Last year, for instance, Samsung and KDDI demonstrated how 5G end-to-end network slicing could play a key role for mobile operators by enabling the creation of multiple virtual networks within a single physical network infrastructure.

Samsung and KDDI will begin trials in Q1 of 2022, and start commercial deployment in the second half of 2022.

Leading vRAN Innovation

Samsung has been at the forefront of vRAN leadership around the world, unveiling its fully virtualized 5G RAN in 2020, followed by successful commercialization with a Tier 1 operator in the U.S. In June 2021, the company was selected by a major European operator to bring vRAN to the U.K.

Samsung recently demonstrated its vRAN capability to support Massive MIMO radios on mid-band, reaching multi-gigabit speeds. The company also teamed with a Tier 1 U.S. operator to complete an end-to-end 5G vRAN trial over C-Band in a live network environment, demonstrating vRAN performance equal to that of traditional hardware-based equipment.

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios, and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from fully virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

As a leading mobile network operator in Poland, Play provides mobile voice, messaging, data and video services for both consumers and businesses. By taking an innovative approach and implementing an effective execution strategy, the company has acquired over 15 million subscribers across the nation, covering 99 percent of the Polish population.

For the trial, Samsung will provide its latest 4G and 5G solutions—including 4G radios, 5G Massive MIMO radios and baseband units—on low and mid-band spectrums. Samsung’s 5G Massive MIMO radios have been commercially deployed since 2019 and are currently in operation across the globe. Slim and lightweight, Samsung’s Massive MIMO radios ensure easy installation and quick deployment for mobile operators and also increase coverage, boost data speeds in order to enrich 5G experience for users. The company’s baseband unit offers improved performance with enhanced capacity and throughput, while supporting both 4G and 5G frequencies in a single unit. With this solution, operators can increase flexibility in network management and achieve cost efficiency.

“At Play we are open to the innovative technologies offered by our partners. The partnership with Samsung is another initiative that allows us to choose the best solutions for the rollout of our network. It is its extension and modernization that have a direct impact on the comfort of our customers,” said Michał Ziółkowski, Management Board Member and Chief Technology Officer at Play.

“Samsung is pleased to work with Play in delivering 5G services, and excited to demonstrate our network capabilities in Poland. This trial will serve as a meaningful milestone for the two companies’ collaborative efforts in Poland,” said Thomas Riedel, Head of Europe, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Leveraging our advanced 5G solutions and technical leadership, we will continue to expand our global and European presence with leading operators like Play to take 5G user experience to new heights.”

Currently, Samsung operates its R&D centers in Warsaw and Cracow, Poland. This is where Samsung’s highest-quality software is created. Here, Samsung researchers and engineers continue to lead technology innovation, advancing its 4G and 5G solutions including Radio Access Network (RAN), core, analytics solutions for self-organizing networks (SON) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) cloud solutions.

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios, and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from fully virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.