Samsung Electronics today announced that its cloud-native Standalone (SA) Core went live supporting KDDI’s nationwide commercial 5G SA services in Japan. Samsung’s 5G SA Core delivers a range of advantages to the operator’s network, including improved reliability and faster response times, required for applications such as cloud gaming, autonomous vehicles, real-time robotics and immersive video.

This milestone follows KDDI’s selection of Samsung to provide its 5G SA Core for the operator’s commercial network in February 2023. Leading up to this launch, the companies have conducted field tests and trials, successfully validating Samsung’s 5G SA Core performance and integrating Samsung’s 5G Core software in a multi-vendor environment. For this launch, Samsung and KDDI have successfully deployed and operated Samsung’s 5G Core software using KDDI’s smart operation system, supporting failure detection, root cause identification, and recovery method decision.

“As we continue to push the boundaries as an innovation leader in Japan, our 5G Standalone network will make it possible to provide our customers with maximum reliability and unprecedented capabilities,” said Toshikazu Yokai, Chief Network Officer, Managing Executive Officer, Deputy General Manager of Technology Sector at KDDI. “In collaboration with Samsung, we continue to offer the best 5G connectivity experience our customers expect, and now we are thrilled to spread the full benefits of 5G nationwide.”

“5G Standalone presents a pathway for future-readiness and this advanced technology opens doors to unprecedented benefits, delivering next-generation capabilities to enterprises and consumers,” said Junehee Lee, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “As we continue to spearhead 5G innovation, we believe Samsung’s ongoing collaboration with KDDI will lead to game-changing opportunities and transformative experiences for end users.”

Samsung’s 5G SA Core supports:

• Multi-level redundancy. Leveraging the cloud-native architecture, Samsung’s 5G SA Core is designed to have no single point of failure with multi-level redundancy. This ensures high resilience and reliable service continuity in every part of the system.
• Multi-vendor interoperability. It can be easily integrated with third-party 5G core network functions and OSS for flexible deployment and automation.
• Seamless upgrades to SA. With one software package that supports NSA and SA, Samsung’s solution can facilitate a smooth migration to 5G SA.
• Session continuity with geo-redundancy. Deployed at various locations, Samsung’s 5G SA Cores provide session continuity support to ensure stability and reliability. Each SA core is dimensioned to pick up loads in case one of the active core becomes unavailable due to traffic bursts or natural disasters.

One of the key benefits of 5G SA Core is that it allows the dynamic allocation of resources to different applications — known as network slicing. Network slicing divides a single physical network infrastructure into multiple virtual slices, and each slice is dedicated to a specific user case or application. A single network can dynamically support multiple 5G use cases and applications at once, accelerating the delivery of new services and meeting the tailored demands of enterprises and consumers.

Recently, KDDI and Samsung signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to form a 5G Global Network Slicing Alliance, aiming to introduce an array of commercial 5G network slicing services and to assess new business models. The two companies will continue to collaborate on advancing this technology, to help fulfill emerging enterprise and consumer demands.

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.

Samsung’s 5G Core solution supports both 4G and 5G networks, offering seamless migration from 4G to 5G. The company’s 5G Core is also designed with critical features to ensure the stability and reliability of the network such as an overload control feature to counteract sudden traffic spikes as well as geo-redundancy support. For geographic redundant deployment, Samsung and KDDI are operating multiple cores in various locations, with each core dimensioned to pick up loads in case one of the active cores becomes unavailable due to traffic bursts or natural disasters.

“We strive to provide the best mobile experiences to our customers through network innovation and our advanced 5G SA network will offer immense capabilities,” said Toshikazu Yokai, Managing Executive Officer, General Manager of Mobile Network Technical Development Division at KDDI. “With Samsung’s 5G SA Core, we will offer unprecedented speed, instantaneous connectivity and high reliability which could bring numerous new experience value for consumers and enterprises. We look forward to continue advancing 5G networks to stay ahead of our customers’ needs.”

“KDDI has been at the forefront of opening up the next frontier of 5G services and we are proud to see our long-term collaboration deepen with new opportunities as we drive continuous innovation and realize technology vision together,” said Junehee Lee, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “We look forward to continuing our collaboration with KDDI to reshape the 5G services landscape in Japan and achieving new 5G milestones.”

The standalone architecture will enable KDDI to create an independent 5G network, enabling lower latency capabilities that are essential to high-performance use cases such as smart factories, automated vehicles, cloud-based online gaming and multi-camera live streaming at sporting events.

Samsung’s 5G Core will also enable KDDI to optimize network slicing — a feature that requires a full 5G SA Core. Network slicing divides a single physical network infrastructure into multiple virtual slices, where each slice is dedicated for a specific user case or application. With this feature, a single network can dynamically support multiple 5G use cases and applications at once, accelerating the delivery of new services and meeting the tailored demands of enterprises and consumers. For instance, operators can create a low latency slice for automated vehicles, an IoT slice for smart factories and a high bandwidth slice for live video streaming — all within the same network.

With the deployment of 5G SA Core, Samsung is providing a wide portfolio of its 5G solutions to KDDI — ranging from RAN to Core. In their collaboration, Samsung has been providing its 5G network solutions which support the operator’s low-, mid- and mmWave spectrum bands — including Massive MIMO radios.

For more than a decade, the two companies have been working together, hitting major 5G networks milestones including KDDI’s selection of Samsung as a 5G network solutions provider and 5G network rollout on 700MHz. Recently, KDDI and Samsung announced the industry’s first demonstration of Service Level Agreements (SLA) assurance network slicing using a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) on a live 5G SA network and the initiation of the commercial deployment of Open virtualized RAN (vRAN) sites in Osaka, which is also the world’s first commercial MU-MIMO implementation with O-RAN compliant multivendor interoperability.

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 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.