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.

Together, the companies are working to reduce the waste attributable to Samsung mobile devices distributed by Orange by extending the lifecycle of a typical product. Orange will offer an extension on the trade-in and the collection programs on used Samsung devices and add a Samsung Certified Refurbished device program through Orange channels. Additionally, the collaboration will leverage the implementation of the Eco-Rating methodology, a pan-industry initiative driven by a consortium of European mobile operators, across Samsung Galaxy smartphones. The new rating will evaluate the environmental impact of the mobile phones during their entire lifecycle from design to disposal, allowing Samsung and Orange to implement further improvements.

As part of this agreement, Samsung and Orange are also preparing for the deployment of advanced 5G standalone (SA) services. The collaboration will see the implementation of end-to-end testing of Samsung devices and technology such as network slicing and voice over Orange’s 5G SA test networks. The process will explore new use-cases made possible through 5G SA network capabilities to support both advanced industrial and entertainment-related services.

Samsung and Orange are also strengthening their collaboration to bring a connected experience powered by Samsung Galaxy devices to Orange customers. This multi-device approach will be deployed in Orange stores and online channels to support Orange’s multi-service strategy, delivering an immersive and seamless mobile experience to end users.

Furthermore, the companies will combine their product and technology assets to provide an upgraded digital activation experience to Orange customers through Samsung smartphone personalization. Samsung will deploy SIM-based personalization of its mobile devices for Orange customers on a single mobile software configuration. Samsung’s over-the-air personalization service will facilitate the discovery and seamless installation of key Orange applications on eligible Samsung Galaxy smartphones regardless of where the customers purchase their Galaxy smartphones.

Finally, Samsung and Orange will progressively generalize the deployment of eSIM activation to a wider range of Samsung devices connected to Orange networks. This will further simplify their users’ experience and reduce the share of plastic-based SIM cards used across the Orange European footprint.

Philippe Lucas, Executive Vice President, Orange Innovation Devices and Partnerships, Orange, commented, “this partnership closely mirrors Orange’s core priorities, contributing to our goals to move rapidly to fulfill our circular economy ambitions and address consumer and societal demand for sustainable devices by pushing trade-in and refurbishment schemes to extend product lifecycles and reduce waste. Furthermore, our commitment to sustainability will drive innovation, enabling differentiation and ultimately deliver growth, as we respond to evolving customer needs. Our close working relationship with Samsung is a great asset in realizing these ambitions.”

“Samsung is dedicated to innovative, strategic partnerships that enable us to scale positive impact around the world,” said Bryan Choi, Executive Vice President and Head of Strategic Marketing of Mobile eXperience Business, Samsung Electronics. “We are pleased to strengthen our relationship with Orange and see Galaxy devices being recycled and reused in different ways and to help provide a more seamless experience for the Galaxy community.”

About Orange

Orange is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with sales of 42.5 billion euros in 2021 and 140,000 employees worldwide at 31 December 2021, including 78,000 employees in France. The Group has a total customer base of 271 million customers worldwide at 31 December 2021, including 224 million mobile customers and 23 million fixed broadband customers. The Group is present in 26 countries. Orange is also a leading provider of global IT and telecommunication services to multinational companies under the brand Orange Business Services. In December 2019, the Group presented its new “Engage 2025” strategic plan, which, guided by social and environmental accountability, aims to reinvent its operator model. While accelerating in growth areas and placing data and AI at the heart of its innovation model, the Group will be an attractive and responsible employer, adapted to emerging professions.

Orange is listed on Euronext Paris (symbol ORA) and on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol ORAN).

For more information on the internet and on your mobile: www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com or to follow us on Twitter: @orangegrouppr.

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trademarks of Orange or Orange Brand Services Limited.

This announcement follows a series of tests completed last year to verify Samsung’s private 5G network solutions on NTT East’s network, demonstrating the capabilities required to build an optimized private 5G network that meets specific enterprise needs.

Leveraging 5G SA

This month, the companies successfully completed a 5G Standalone (SA) technological verification, achieving increased uplink throughput by optimizing uplink and downlink allocation ratio in NTT East Research Facility. This improved uplink performance will be a key enabler for advanced services that require high data transmission — such as live video monitoring, connected drones and automated vehicles.

For the technological verification, Samsung provided its end-to-end 5G solutions — including its outdoor radio units, baseband unit and 5G SA Core — to deliver the highest standards of quality, interoperability and stability. Samsung also used HPE’s software to ensure security in the network.

This verification was conducted using NTT East’s 4.8 – 4.9GHz spectrum, which is a frequency band dedicated for the Local 5G networks initiative in Japan — a government program that enables enterprises to deploy private 5G networks using the country’s assigned frequency band, independent of traditional mobile networks.

“We are excited to advance in accelerating our private 5G network expansion in Japan,” said Riaki Hoshino, Senior Vice President & Executive Officer at NTT East. “In continuing our collaboration with Samsung, we look to deliver the most innovative 5G services and transformative experiences possible for our enterprise customers, tailored to their specific needs.”

“Private 5G networks, powered by Samsung’s comprehensive portfolio of 5G solutions, will create a new wave of opportunities for enterprises, driven by improved productivity and superior connectivity,” said Woojune Kim, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “We’re proud to support NTT East in the expansion of Local 5G, which will impact a range of industries including agriculture, manufacturing and transportation.

NTT East is a leading telecommunications company, providing services in the east area of Japan.

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

The two companies verified the 5G Option 4 technology at the SKT R&D Center to achieve the equal data speed as the NSA, using 175MHz of bandwidth, and also completed the verification of SA’s specialized functions. For this commercial field trial, SKT used Samsung’s 5G SA Core, 5G radios and 4G radios, which are already deployed across SKT’s 5G commercial networks.

5G Option 4 is a more advanced option than the existing 5G Standalone mode (SA Option 2) and provides the equivalent level of speed and quality as the NSA while utilizing the specialized functions of the SA Option 2 such as network slicing and the evolved 5G Core network.

SA Option 4 helps operators deliver innovative services including Urban Air Mobility (UAM), automated vehicles, remote control for heavy equipment, remote control robots and more. Network slicing creates multiple virtual networks within a single physical network infrastructure, optimizing network resources to meet specific performance needs for various services.

“While we supported the launch of the world’s first commercial 5G services in Korea, we are excited to continue spearheading the advancement of 5G through 5G SA technology, which will power innovative 5G services by leveraging the world-class LTE network that is well established in Korea,” said Jong-Kwan Park, Vice President and Head of 5GX Technology Group at SKT. “We will continue to expand our collaboration with industry leaders to continue driving this advanced technology and in growing this 5G SA ecosystem, to demonstrate new ways to tap the full potential of next-generation networks.”

“Through this commercial trial, Samsung is proud to collaborate with SKT to achieve another milestone in advancing 5G SA technology, demonstrating the equal performance as NSA with 5G Option 4 technology in 5G SA mode,” said June Moon, Executive Vice President and Head of Technology Strategy, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “We look forward to continue collaborating with SKT for the development and commercialization of advanced 5G SA technology, to deliver market-leading services to consumers and diverse use cases across industry.”

While in the early stages of 5G, operators used E-UTRAN New Radio Dual Connectivity (EN-DC) technology to combine 5G and 4G networks in 5G NSA mode, and now with 5G SA, they can leverage SA Option 4, which is a more advanced dual connectivity technology.

This latest milestone is a result of Samsung and SKT’s continued commitment to developing cutting-edge network technologies that power innovative 5G use cases. As part of their ongoing collaboration, the companies have successfully completed the EN-DC test in 2019, following the world’s first 5G Next-Generation Core (5G NC) trial in June 2018. In March 2021, SKT began delivering 5G SA commercial services to private networks using Samsung’s advanced 5G end-to-end solutions. In a collaborative effort, the companies will continue delivering advanced network services to mobile users in Korea.

Visit SK Telecom’s booth at MWC Barcelona 2022 for this Option 4 (NE-DC) demonstration and more.

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 SK Telecom

SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM) is Korea’s leading ICT company, driving innovations in fixed & wireless telecommunications, AI service, and digital infrastructure service. Armed with cutting-edge ICT including AI and 5G, the company is ushering in a new level of convergence to deliver unprecedented value to customers. As the global 5G pioneer, SKT is committed to realizing the full potential of 5G through ground-breaking services that can improve people’s lives, transform businesses, and lead to a better society.

SKT boasts unrivaled leadership in the Korean mobile market with over 30 million subscribers, which account for nearly 50 percent of the market.

For more information, please contact skt_press@sk.com or visit our LinkedIn page www.linkedin.com/company/sk-telecom.

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.

Since then, Samsung and KT have been preparing for 5G SA launch through multiple tests and trials in KT’s major offices and in urban areas. Today’s deployment will help accelerate KT’s 5G vision to deliver socio-economic value and enhanced consumer experiences across Korea through the advancement of 5G.

“Our 5G SA service will be an important step in unlocking the full potential of 5G and it will bring new value to our customers,” said Youngsoo Seo, Senior Vice President and Director of Network Research Technology Unit, Network Group at KT. “As a digital platform company, KT will continue to make efforts to help drive Korea’s Digital New Deal and ensure our customers enjoy the best experiences and opportunities that 5G has to offer.”

Unlocking 5G’s Full Potential

The implementation of 5G SA networks opens up new business opportunities for service providers, enabling them to reduce time-to-service, and accelerate a new generation of use cases and opportunities for consumers and businesses.

For this commercial launch, Samsung provided KT its end-to-end 5G network solutions from Radio Access Network (RAN) to Core. KT facilitated a smooth transition to 5G SA by using Samsung’s 5G RAN and Core, which can support 5G SA and NSA simultaneously.

“Samsung is proud to play a leading role in placing Korea at the forefront of network technology innovation,” said Seungil Kim, Vice President and Head of Korea Business, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Our reliable and flexible 5G SA architecture, powered by our 5G RAN and Core, will enable KT to offer its users the next generation of enhanced use cases and mobile experiences. By introducing 5G SA services in Korea, we are taking a meaningful step in 5G journey, and look forward to delivering more transformative experiences to customers and businesses with KT.”

For more information on 5G SA, please refer to Samsung’s whitepaper: 5G Standalone Architecture

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.

Migration Paths for 5G and Samsung’s Offerings

Mobile operators can take several 5G migration paths, which can be divided into two major categories: Non-Standalone (NSA) and Standalone (SA), defined by 3GPP. With 5G NSA, operators can quickly tap into high speed 5G services by utilizing legacy 4G infrastructure. Since 2019, Samsung has been deploying and commercializing 5G NSA networks across the globe.

With 5G Standalone, mobile operators can leverage new, powerful features like Ultra Low Latency (URLLC), Industrial IoT (IIoT) and network slicing to unlock the full potential of 5G. For instance, advanced network services, including connected vehicles, smart factory and VR/AR, can be effectively delivered. Samsung offers the full scope of 5G solutions ranging from RAN to Core that is outfitted with cloud-native features and is ready to support operators to successfully commercialize 5G SA network.

Full-fledged 5G services will not only help mobile operators to capitalize on new revenue stream, but also allow users to enjoy the full benefits of immersive 5G services. To capture these new opportunities, operators need to successfully migrate to 5G SA architecture. By highlighting the migration roadmap from 4G to 5G and the advantages of 5G SA, the whitepaper illustrates Samsung’s capability and its migration strategy to support operators’ needs.

For further information on 5G SA and its use cases and benefits, read our whitepaper here.

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios, and core network technologies. Samsung supports 5G commercial services in the world’s leading markets, including Korea, the U.S. and Japan. In addition, the company is rapidly expanding its global footprint to new markets including Canada and New Zealand.

The next-generation core network enables operators to instantaneously install and swiftly deploy customized solutions and services. With this core network solution, operators will be able to utilize network resources more effectively. For instance, when the data traffic spikes, the operators will be able to move capacity to flexibly adapt to the sudden changes in their networks.

In addition, the two companies plan to discover new 5G use cases through the enhanced capabilities to efficiently deploy, provision and activate the new applications. From AR/VR and cloud gaming to autonomous driving and smart factory use cases, Samsung and SKT are building advanced network capabilities to enable the delivery of these new immersive capabilities to consumers, and increase the accessibility and deployment ease of 5G for enterprises, with private 5G networks.

“The next-generation cloud core network applied with SCP will increase customer benefits through accelerated adoption of 5G-based products and services,” said Jong-kwan Park, Vice President and Head of 5GX Technology Group of SKT. “We will continue to work closely with Samsung to develop breakthrough next-generation network technologies to realize innovative 5G use cases.”

“Samsung’s cloud native 5G core will enable operators to have flexible and reliable networks that will play a key role in delivering a myriad of 5G use cases,” said Wonil Roh, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Product Strategy, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “With SKT, Samsung will continue to develop cutting edge technology to enable more 5G use cases, as well as bring additional values to our enterprise customers.”

Samsung’s cloud native 5G core offers modularized and containerized Network Functions (NFs), enabling new services and features to be launched quickly in a commercial network, while reducing the operating costs. By improving agility and manageability in the network, new applications can be introduced more efficiently. The 5G core solution from Samsung allows SKT to upgrade its network more readily, ensuring it always has the latest features and capabilities.

SKT has developed cloud native Service Communication Proxy (SCP), which enables operators to manage their 5G networks more effectively and efficiently. SCP intelligently controls communication of NFs based on traffic status and behavior. That is, it allows only necessary NFs to communicate with each other depending on the network traffic, thereby saving resources.  Samsung and SKT have successfully completed the interoperability trial between SKT’s cloud native SCP and Samsung’s cloud native 5G core, and were able to prove that, with SCP, the communication efficiency among NFs have improved by 30%.

Samsung and SKT signed an agreement last year to jointly advance 5G and develop for the next-generation communications. The companies will continue to deliver the best class network services to users through collaborative development and commercialization of network technologies, devices, and smart solutions.

Samsung is a pioneer in the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios, and core network technologies. Samsung has been at the forefront of virtualized core (vCore) solution development for 4G and 5G, starting with the commercialization of 4G vCore in 2015 and 5G NSA vCore in 2018. Samsung is leading the path to commercialization of 5G SA core.

About SK Telecom

SK Telecom is Korea’s leading ICT company, driving innovations in the areas of mobile communications, media, security, commerce and mobility. Armed with cutting-edge ICT including AI and 5G, the company is ushering in a new level of convergence to deliver unprecedented value to customers. As the global 5G pioneer, SK Telecom is committed to realizing the full potential of 5G through ground-breaking services that can improve people’s lives, transform businesses, and lead to a better society.

SK Telecom boasts unrivaled leadership in the Korean mobile market with over 30 million subscribers, which account for nearly 50 percent of the market. The company now has 48 ICT subsidiaries and annual revenues approaching KRW 17.7 trillion.

For more information, please contact skt_press@sk.com or visit the LinkedIn page www.linkedin.com/company/sk-telecom.

Samsung and KT have been collaborating since the development stage to deliver key 5G SA technologies on KT’s NSA infrastructure, which incorporates Samsung’s Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS) solution, edge traffic steering, and network slicing capabilities.

KT launched 5G commercial services in NSA mode last April, making them the only operator in Korea to adopt CUPS solution in its network. The CUPS architecture, defined in 3GPP standards, is a fundamental technology to 5G SA core that improves network scalability, flexibility and deployment by separating the control and user plane functions. CUPS also enables operators and enterprises to swiftly introduce 5G SA services through software upgrades, without the need to build a separate 5G SA core.

“By implementing CUPS since the initial phase of 5G commercialization, we have a competitive advantage in the market. With this advantage, we are able to rapidly and easily deploy 5G SA and NSA common core in our MEC centers without additional core networks,” said Young-soo Seo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Research Technology Unit at KT Corporation. “Having already achieved a number of milestones with Samsung, we are excited to collaborate again as we prepare for the launch of 5G SA networks in Korea. KT is proud to deliver innovative services to our users and to continue building a foundation for the 5G evolution and beyond.”

Samsung’s 5G common core can support 5G SA and NSA as well as 4G simultaneously, facilitating smooth evolution to 5G SA. This fully-integrated common core simplifies data packet flows, enabling users to experience stable, high-quality mobile services. Enterprises can also selectively adopt either SA and/or NSA networks to easily scale their business-specific services. In addition, 5G SA architecture does not rely on the existing 4G infrastructure and therefore, offers low-latency services and helps save mobile battery consumption for consumers.

“Our 5G common core is a powerful solution that brings unprecedented services closer to users and will unlock a new generation of enterprise applications. This collaboration with KT is a significant milestone in advancing towards the commercialization of nationwide 5G SA networks in Korea,” said Taiyeon Kim, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Technology Service, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “We look forward to continuing our work with KT to spur future achievements in 5G SA technology and advance Korea’s network landscape.”

Samsung is a pioneer in the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios, and core network technologies. The company has been at the forefront of virtualized core (vCore) solution development for 4G and 5G, starting with the commercialization of 4G vCore in 2015 and 5G NSA vCore in 2018. Samsung is leading the path to commercialization of 5G SA core.

Earlier this year, mobile operators in Korea and the United States have helped to successfully usher in the 5G era with the launch of commercial service using Samsung Network’s end-to-end 5G solutions, accelerating 5G deployments around the world. The 5G SA Core will help operators offer innovative 5G SA services, such as network slicing, mobile edge computing, AI analytics and ultra-low latency (URLLC) networks. The solution will play a significant role in driving new business opportunities for mobile operators as the industry is focusing on the next generation services spanning autonomous driving, smart factory, smart farm, and AR/VR.

“5G SA Core built on open architecture is a key driver of the innovative services that 5G promises, and it will help mobile operators create new revenue streams and business opportunities,” said Wonil Roh, Vice President and Head of Product Strategy, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung is excited to continue building out a robust and open 5G ecosystem with global partners like HPE and Openet.  We look forward to extending our 5G technical leadership around the globe by widening our end-to-end 5G solution portfolio.”

Samsung’s 5G SA Core brings together cloud-native 5G network functions from the three companies to deliver end-to-end 5G SA services. For this multi-vendor interoperability test, Samsung has integrated its control, user plane network function & orchestrator¹ with HPE’s shared data environment and Network Functions (NF)², and Openet’s policy & charging solutions³. The 5G Core also provides multiple simultaneous network slices for a variety of services, such as enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) that validate the principles of cloud-native design, virtual network scaling and edge-to-core networks.

“By offering a complete 5G Core that is designed around an open service-based architecture, operators can break out of the single vendor lock-in of previous generation networks,” said Domenico Convertino, Vice President Product Management, Communications & Media Solutions, HPE. “The open architecture also allows operators to have a smooth evolution to 5G with proven co-existence with 4G network technologies.”

“Openness and interoperability are foundations for 5G systems. This demonstration shows the power of taking a multi-vendor partnership approach to providing 5G SA Core and how it can enable network slicing with dynamic policy and charging rules,” said Joe Hogan, CTO and Founder of Openet. “Being able to manage the quality of service for 5G network slicing will allow operators to enter into many new markets with innovative offers and open up new revenue streams.”

With this multi-vendor solution, Samsung’s 5G SA Core enables operators to select innovative network functions offered by numerous IT vendors. Through this approach, combined with the ability to offer advanced telecommunication technologies such as networks slicing and URLLC, the three companies are continuing their efforts in 5G collaboration to bring new opportunities and options to mobile operators.

The 5G SA Core solution from Samsung can be demonstrated either remotely, or on-site at Samsung’s 5G Core Open Lab located in Korea. The lab offers interoperability tests among multiple vendors and shows the robust features of 5G core solutions, while integrating cloud platforms from partners into Samsung’s functions.

¹ Samsung network solutions included in the joint implementation include: Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF), Session Management Function (SMF), User Plane Function (UPF), Network Repository Function (NRF), Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF), etc.

² HPE cloud-native network functions (NF) software products included in the joint implementation include: Unstructured Data Storage Function (UDSF), Unified Data Repository (UDR), Authentication Server Function (AUSF), Unified Data Management (UDM), and Network Exposure Function (NEF)

³ Openet cloud-native network functions (NF) software products included in the joint implementation include: Policy Control Function (PCF), Binding Support Function (BSF), Charging Function (CHF)

Source: US Newsroom

The 5G SA Core, jointly developed by Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom, not only supports technologies including network slicing and function modularization based on 3GPP standards, but also offers additional functions that operators have been using since LTE, include billing, subscriber management and operational convenience system. The interoperability assessment is the final stage for verifying the validity of 5G SA data transmission, signifying that the SA system is ready to be launched for commercial service.

Both companies implemented several cutting-edge technologies in the 5G SA Core that has been used for the interoperability. The technologies include Data Parallel Processing technology that performs QoS and transmission control simultaneously; Data Acceleration technology that classifies and distributes similar traffic types; and Path Optimization technology that automatically delivers data traffic to Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) platform.

“The fundamental structure of 5G SA is built on a completely new configuration, successfully delivering the most optimized 5G service to customers and enterprises across numerous industries,” said Jaeho Jeon, Executive Vice President and Head of R&D, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Maintaining Korea’s leadership in network innovations through continuous investments in next-generation technologies is important to Samsung and SK Telecom, and the companies will continue to collaborate on developing and commercializing 5G SA.”

“Along with the initial phase of NSA rollout, we have been continuously focusing on researching and developing the SA technology in order to provide customers a differentiated service quality with innovative products, which will be launched in the first half of next year,” said Park Jin-hyo, Chief Technology Officer and Head of ICT R&D Center at SK Telecom. “By strengthening bilateral collaboration with Samsung, SK Telecom will drive and lead highly innovative 5G technologies and solutions.”

Once 5G SA is commercialized, data processing efficient will be improved by threefold, allowing efficient control for supporting massive data traffic. Moreover, 5G SA system is highly optimized for emerging next generation services such as Autonomous driving, Smart Factory, Smart Farm, and AR/VR.

For the past five years, the two companies have been collaborating on LTE and 5G development, which ultimately led to this successful 5G SA Core interoperability test. Some of other accomplishments include the commercialization of Virtualized LTE Core and Packet Optimization system; and they have completed the development of 3GPP Rel. 15 based SA Core in July last year, and successfully launched 5G NSA commercial service in April this year.

About SK Telecom

SK Telecom is the largest mobile operator in Korea with nearly 50 percent of the market share. As the pioneer of all generations of mobile networks, the company has launched the fifth generation (5G) network on December 1, 2018. The company is not only leading innovations in the field of mobile network, but is also creating unprecedented value in areas such as media, security and commerce. In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, SK Telecom will inspire the world, building a future beyond expectations. Building on its strength in mobile services, the company is also creating unprecedented value in diverse ICT-related markets including media, security and commerce. For more information, please contact skt_press@sk.com or sktelecom@bm.com