The RIC is a software-based component in Open RAN (O-RAN) architecture that uses AI and automation to optimize network performance with intelligent applications. It enables operators to flexibly deploy and manage diverse applications for comprehensive monitoring and analysis as well as energy-saving operations, helping them optimize networks, manage resources efficiency and elevate service quality.

This RIC deployment represents the next phase of TELUS and Samsung’s ongoing collaboration to transform Canada’s telecommunications landscape. Following the companies’ announcement of Canada’s first commercial virtualized and O-RAN network in February 2024, the RIC implementation will enable TELUS to harness AI throughout network operations and management – significantly boosting operational efficiency with potential to reduce costs.

“We are excited to broaden our collaboration with Samsung to transform our network and enhance the customer experience using AI,” said Bernard Bureau, Vice President of Wireless Strategy & Services at TELUS. “This partnership aligns closely with our commitment to responsible sovereign AI development and will enable us to provide more personalized, efficient and sustainable services. Importantly, it also allows us to manage and optimize RAN equipment from multiple vendors through a single, unified platform, maintaining the diversity and flexibility that are core principles of O-RAN.”

“AI is ushering in a new era of possibilities and in order to fully realize its potential across industries, the right foundation is critical. At Samsung, we believe vRAN is the best way forward on the path to AI-RAN, built on an end-to-end software-based architecture that provides the optimal foundation for AI. We are actively supporting our customers’ AI journey today with our proven vRAN and AI-powered solutions including RIC,” said Angelo Jeongho Park, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “As Canada’s leader in vRAN and Open RAN, TELUS is very well-positioned to lead the way in bringing AI into the networks. Together with TELUS, we are fueling the transition to a more intelligent and autonomous network.”

Samsung’s RIC solution supports both legacy hardware-based and open virtualized networks, allowing TELUS to implement intelligent automation across its entire network infrastructure. This capability allows TELUS to gain immediate benefits while maintaining its accelerated vRAN deployment across Canadian markets.

Samsung’s offerings include the KPI Anomaly Detector (KAD) and RAN Anomaly Insight (RAI) to proactively identify and analyze network issues, Energy Saving Manager (ESM) to perform dynamic traffic prediction and automated orchestration of diverse energy saving features and Load Balancing Manager (LBM) to optimize resource utilization and improve network performance and reliability. Samsung’s O-RAN compliant RIC solution seamlessly supports intelligent applications from Samsung as well as third parties, ensuring TELUS can leverage the best innovations across the industry.

Samsung’s initial delivery of software solutions was completed in July, and will continue throughout 2025. The companies plan to conduct extensive testing across various Canadian markets over the course of this year.

With more than 30 years of innovation in Canada, Samsung continues to be part of the country’s progress toward advancing technology and helping its people stay connected. Samsung has also been actively involved in advancing AI in the region, with the establishment of its AI Centre Toronto (AIC-Toronto) in 2018. The AIC-Toronto is part of the company’s efforts to maximize its expertise and leadership in the global AI landscape, bringing new capabilities to consumers and businesses.

About TELUS

TELUS (TSX: T, NYSE: TU) is a world-leading communications technology company operating in more than 45 countries and generating over $20 billion in annual revenue with more than 20 million customer connections through our advanced suite of broadband services for consumers, businesses and the public sector. We are committed to leveraging our technology to enable remarkable human outcomes. TELUS is passionate about putting our customers and communities first, leading the way globally in client service excellence and social capitalism. Our TELUS Health business is enhancing 157 million lives across 200 countries and territories through innovative preventive medicine and well-being technologies. Our TELUS Agriculture & Consumer Goods business utilizes digital technologies and data insights to optimize the connection between producers and consumers. Guided by our enduring ‘give where we live’ philosophy, TELUS, our team members and retirees have contributed $1.8 billion in cash, in-kind contributions, time and programs including 2.4 million days of service since 2000, earning us the distinction of the world’s most giving company.

We’re always building Canada.

For more information, visit telus.com or follow @TELUSNews on X and @Darren_Entwistle on Instagram.

For the series of tests carried out in Samsung’s lab in Dallas, Texas, the companies used Samsung’s market-leading radios compliant with O-RAN specifications. The tests included multiple Samsung radios including CAT-A radios 4T4R supporting 700/850 MHz and AWS/PCS bands, CAT-B 64T64R Massive MIMO C-Band radios and 16T16R C-band and CBRS dual-band radios.

The tests underscore Samsung’s Massive MIMO leadership, specifically with its 64T64R Massive MIMO radio which Verizon has already deployed throughout its large-scale commercial vRAN networks nationwide. Results from the tests illustrate Samsung’s capability to handle advanced Massive MIMO radio integration, which is more complex for 64T64R Massive MIMO radios compared to simple CAT-A radios.

Using Keysight Technologies’ O-RAN distributed unit (O-DU) emulator, the companies tested O-RAN mandatory and optional beamforming capabilities in the same Massive MIMO unit and delivered promised performance gains. This level of conformance testing helps ensure that new O-RAN networks will perform as expected while delivering the full capabilities that next-generation 5G solutions enable.

“We’re excited to achieve Open RAN conformance across five key radios in our portfolio compliant with the latest O-RAN and 3GPP standards,” said Jisha Hall, Vice President of Operations, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics America. “This joint work shows how Samsung is empowering forerunning operators like Verizon to deploy virtualized Open RAN, backed by our strong ecosystem and proven expertise in commercial networks for Tier 1 operators in North America, Europe and Asia.”

“O-RAN is a very important component of our network evolution strategy,” said Steven Rice, Vice President of Network Planning, Verizon. “By leveraging O-RAN radios and software-driven infrastructure with industry-leading partners like Samsung and Keysight, we continue to drive the industry towards a more open, interoperable environment which will provide greater flexibility, greater innovation and better performance for our customers.”

“Keysight is excited to have partnered with Samsung and Verizon on successful Open RAN testing and looks forward to continued collaboration to advance next-generation network solutions,” said Peng Cao, Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Test Group at Keysight. “Our leadership in O-RAN standards and testing empowers the industry to confidently build, test and deploy cutting-edge, interoperable Open RAN solutions in real-world networks.”

In 2021, Samsung supported the commercial launch of Verizon’s first 5G C-band networks with its vRAN solution. This led to establishing another milestone in 2022, with Samsung successfully building the world’s largest vRAN commercial network. The continued collaboration between Samsung and Verizon reinforces their commitment to O-RAN and leadership in enabling virtualized open networks with greater flexibility, faster time-to-market and unmatched performance.

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 has been raising the bar on what’s possible with vRAN and Open RAN, and we are delighted to work with Vodafone and Orange to be part of the first Open RAN sharing initiative in Romania,” said Junehee Lee, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “As we continue to expand our footprint across Europe, including the recent large-scale Open RAN deployments in the U.K., we continue to push our innovative boundaries, empowering networks in Europe.”

Following Vodafone UK’s Open RAN deployment and the successful integration tests in Orange’s Open RAN lab in France, Samsung provided its multi-RAT vRAN software as well as Open RAN-compliant radios for this initiative. As part of their pilot project, both operators have already achieved successful 4G calls over their respective Open RAN sharing sites and will soon introduce 2G, which has already been tested successfully in the lab, and then 5G. It will be the first time 2G is fully integrated within a commercial Open RAN sharing environment in Europe.

Earlier this year, Vodafone and Orange announced their intention to trial Open RAN with RAN sharing across Europe. By allowing the sharing of network components, RAN sharing helps reduce hardware costs, energy consumption and the need for duplicate sites. RAN sharing will help advance wide-scale Open RAN adoption in Europe.

This milestone represents the capabilities of Open RAN, to modernize legacy hardware-based mobile networks, bringing more sustainability and intelligence to the RAN, as well as the ability to more quickly and efficiently introduce new services.

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.

The two companies have completed several rounds of tests at Samsung’s lab to verify high-capacity and telco-grade performance using FDD bands and TDD Massive MIMO wide-bands, while significantly reducing power consumption. In this joint collaboration, Samsung used its versatile vRAN software integrated with the new AMD EPYC 8004 processors, focused on telco and intelligent edge. During technical verification, the EPYC 8004 processors combined with Samsung’s vRAN solutions delivered optimized cell capacity per server as well as high power efficiency.

“This technical collaboration demonstrates Samsung’s commitment to delivering network flexibility and high performance for service providers by building a larger vRAN and Open RAN ecosystem,” said Henrik Jansson, Vice President and Head of SI Business Group, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung has been at the forefront of unleashing the full potential of 5G vRAN technology to meet rising demands, and we look forward to collaborating with industry leaders like AMD to provide operators the capabilities to transform their networks.”

“By integrating our AMD EPYC processors with Samsung’s leading vRAN solution, operators will have a powerful tool with the incredible energy efficiency and balanced performance needed for this environment,” said Lynn Comp, Corporate Vice President, Technical Marketing, Server Business at AMD. “It’s great to be collaborating with Samsung in 5G vRAN solutions to leverage our market-leading products for the data center and tackle key challenges of the telco edge and RAN environment.”

Samsung will continue working with AMD to facilitate the acceleration of vRAN and Open RAN for 5G and drive new innovation for next-generation networks.

Samsung’s vRAN Ecosystem

Samsung has made significant strides with its vRAN ecosystem, expanding collaboration with industry-leading providers spanning a range of technologies, including: processors, COTS servers, container platforms (CaaS), xHaul transport and cloud solutions. This strong and growing ecosystem illustrates Samsung’s leadership in offering vRAN and Open RAN solutions that are reliable, sustainable and meet or exceed telco-grade performance. Samsung has proven its extensive expertise in commercial networks for Tier 1 operators in the North America, Europe and Asia.

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 and 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.

For this installation, Samsung is providing its vRAN software supporting Multi-RAT (multiple radio access technology) — across 4G and 5G — and its O-RAN compliant radios in the low- and mid-bands, including its Massive MIMO radios. Samsung has fully integrated its 64T64R Massive MIMO radios into Open RAN, demonstrating its capability to handle integration, which is more complex for 64T64R Massive MIMO radios, in comparison to single-band radios.

This deployment — the largest Open RAN rollout in the U.K. — is the latest milestone in the expanded collaboration between Vodafone, Samsung and several other partners, since the U.K.’s first 5G Open RAN site in Bath in January of 2022. Subsequently Samsung supported the installation of Open RAN in Vodafone’s Exmouth and Torquay network, in December of 2022. This was another first for the Open RAN ecosystem.

Using Samsung’s vRAN solutions, Vodafone, Samsung and other partners have proven the capability of Open RAN in Vodafone UK’s commercial network, exceeding the performance of legacy hardware-based RAN in urban locations. Test results exceeded the targeted KPIs, including 4G and 5G downlink and uplink throughput.

“Vodafone has been at the forefront of Open RAN innovation and we are excited to kick-off the mass installation of Open RAN, working together with Samsung Networks and the rest of our ecosystem,” said Andrea Dona, Chief Network Officer, Vodafone UK. “After rounds of testing and validation, we are well prepared to embark on this new phase in our Open RAN expansion, and look forward to opening up a new world of possibilities that will transform customer experiences.”

“Now we are witnessing how innovative technologies like Open RAN and vRAN can further bolster 5G capabilities, creating new paths and possibilities for network evolution,” said Junehee Lee, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Following this historic milestone in Europe, we will continue working together with Vodafone to take their Open RAN networks to new heights.”

“The release of vRAN 3.0 comes at a good time, as Samsung is extending its vRAN solutions to this major ‘brownfield’ opportunity,” said Joe Madden, Founder & Chief Analyst, Mobile Experts. “This milestone is important because it represents Open RAN replacing legacy solutions at scale in a high-capacity environment, and it sets up Vodafone UK with the flexibility to monetize their RAN better in the future.”

Samsung also supported the automation of vRAN deployments process, easing the management of cell sites from a unified platform.

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.

This builds upon the two companies’ initial network collaboration, including Vodafone UK’s successful launch of the first 5G Open RAN site in Bath, U.K. in January 2022, using Samsung’s virtualized RAN (vRAN) solution. Vodafone and Samsung are proving stable performance and capacity in Vodafone UK’s commercial network, exceeding targeted performance level and power savings in its strategic Open RAN sites (also known as its ‘Golden Cluster’), located in Exmouth and Torquay, England.

“As we grow and scale our network, we are excited to jointly drive collaborative Open RAN innovation and continue our groundbreaking work together with Samsung,” said Santiago Tenorio, Director of Network Architecture for Vodafone. “We look forward to continue bringing fundamental improvements to our wide-scale next-generation network, to further accelerate our open network approach for 5G expansion across Europe.”

New Europe 5G Initiatives

Building on their collaborative advancements, the two companies continue to grow their Open RAN footprint in Europe. New developments and projects include:

• In the U.K.: The companies implemented Samsung’s O-RAN compliant Massive MIMO radios in Vodafone UK’s commercial network, efficiently expanding 5G coverage in the U.K. With this, Samsung’s 64T64R Massive MIMO radios are now successfully integrated with 5G vRAN, carrying commercial data traffic. Recently, the companies also completed a data call using Samsung’s vRAN and NEC’s Massive MIMO radio, demonstrating multi-vendor interoperability for Vodafone’s commercial network. This illustrates how Open RAN technology can enable multi-vendor integration of vRAN, not only with single-band radios but also with more complex Massive MIMO radios.
• In Germany: Vodafone will carry out comprehensive pilot projects for Open RAN using Samsung’s 2G/4G vRAN and O-RAN compliant radio solutions. In these commercial pilots announced in October 2022, Vodafone will use Samsung’s mature solutions — proven in large-scale commercial networks — to demonstrate outstanding performance, stability and reliability.
• In Spain: Samsung joined Vodafone’s testbed in Ciudad Real, which was created to benchmark mature RAN providers and compare performance across both traditional and Open RAN. Samsung will deploy its Massive MIMO radios and 4G/5G vRAN in CREATE (Ciudad Real España Advanced Testing Environment) to evaluate and verify their performance in Spain’s urban environment.

“Samsung’s virtualized Open RAN solutions are successfully running in Vodafone’s commercial network in the U.K., delivering performance on par with traditional mobile radio networks and providing Vodafone with an agile network on which to deploy new services and features,” said Thomas Riedel, Head of Samsung Networks Europe. “Vodafone has been a pioneer in the Open RAN space and they continue to break new grounds. We are excited to deepen our collaboration with Vodafone by extending our capabilities across Europe, and taking vRAN innovation to the next level.”

Continuing to claim deployment milestones, the two companies remain as strong partners in leading 5G Open vRAN innovation. Vodafone and Samsung are collaborating with other Open RAN leaders, to drive acceleration of Open RAN with wider diversity and multi-vendor, open architecture.

This builds upon the two companies’ 5G agreement previously-announced in March 2021, in which NTT DOCOMO selected Samsung as its 5G network solutions provider. Samsung now adds new radios — including 3.7GHz, 4.5GHz and 28GHz — to its existing 3.4GHz radio support for NTT DOCOMO.

This expanded portfolio from Samsung will enable NTT DOCOMO to leverage its broad range of spectrum across Japan to build a versatile 5G network for diversifying their services offered to consumers and businesses. The companies have also been testing the interoperability of these new radios with basebands from various vendors in NTT DOCOMO’s commercial network environment.

“We have been collaborating with Samsung since the beginning of 5G and through our Open RAN expansion, and we are excited to continue extending our scope of vision together,” said Masafumi Masuda, Vice President and General Manager of the Radio Access Network Development Department at NTT DOCOMO. “Solidifying our global leadership, we will continue to build momentum around our Open RAN innovation and to provide highly scalable and flexible networks to respond quickly to the evolving demands of our customers.”

“Japan is home to one of the world’s most densely populated areas with numerous skyscrapers and complex infrastructure. Samsung’s industry-leading 5G radios portfolio meets the demands of low-footprint, low-weight solutions, while also ensuring reliable service quality,” said Satoshi Iwao, Vice President and Head of Network Division at Samsung Electronics Japan. “As NTT DOCOMO continues to accelerate its Open RAN innovation, we look forward to working together to deliver a richer experience to consumers and generating new business opportunities.”

With today’s announcement, Samsung introduces its new 28GHz Radio Unit (RU) for the first time — as a new addition to its portfolio of leading mmWave solutions. This RU, which weighs less than 4.5kg (~10lbs), features a light and compact form factor with very low power consumption, enabling flexible deployments in various scenarios. Additionally, Samsung’s 3.4GHz, 3.7GHz and 4.5GHz radios are also Open RAN-compliant and designed to deliver high performance and reliability.

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.

About NTT DOCOMO

NTT DOCOMO, Japan’s leading mobile operator with over 85 million subscriptions, is one of the world’s foremost contributors to 3G, 4G and 5G mobile network technologies. Beyond core communications services, DOCOMO is challenging new frontiers in collaboration with a growing number of entities (“+d” partners), creating exciting and convenient value-added services that change the way people live and work. Under a medium-term plan toward 2020 and beyond, DOCOMO is pioneering a leading-edge 5G network to facilitate innovative services that will amaze and inspire customers beyond their expectations. https://www.docomo.ne.jp/english/.

“Samsung’s 5G solutions will play an integral role in our network expansion, giving us the flexibility to deploy our cloud-native network with software-based solutions that support advanced services and operational scalability,” said John Swieringa, president and chief operating officer, DISH Wireless. “We look forward to working with Samsung, whose industry leadership in vRAN and O-RAN innovation will help support our vision of delivering open, interoperable cloud-based 5G services to consumers and enterprises across the U.S.”

“Samsung is excited to join this 5G journey with DISH, a pioneer in bringing new experiences to households and businesses around the country, leveraging openness and virtualization that sit at the heart of network evolution,” said Mark Louison, executive vice president and head of the Networks Business, Samsung Electronics America. “Our advanced 5G vRAN and radio solutions bring telco-grade quality and cloud-based agility together, building on these benefits to enable more customers to experience the full value of commercial 5G Open RAN.”

Samsung Networks Business will supply DISH Wireless with its 5G and RAN solutions, vRAN software and a variety of O-RAN compliant radio units, including Massive MIMO radios. Samsung’s vRAN can operate on any commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) server, while still delivering performance on par with traditional hardware-based equipment. With its cloud-native architecture, DISH Wireless’ Open RAN deployment is based on open interfaces, allowing for multi-vendor interoperability and various deployment scenarios. The Samsung radios will also support all of DISH’s Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) spectrum bands (including n71, n29, n66, n70, n48 and n77).¹

Samsung and DISH 5G Network Collaboration

Handsets and Devices

DISH and Samsung’s collaboration will extend to retail wireless customers, providing them with leading-edge 5G devices, connecting customers to DISH Wireless’ SMART 5G network.

“Our work with DISH Wireless is bringing many of Samsung’s innovative mobile products and services to even more customers on the DISH network,” said Jude Buckley, executive vice president of the Mobile Business, Samsung Electronics America. “We are excited to continue to work together to bring Samsung’s powerful mobile products and services, which are compatible with the DISH network, to more customers.”

“Together, we’ll create solutions to bring DISH Wireless’ smart network to life for retail and enterprise customers, enhancing their productivity, enriching their connection to people and smart technology, improving their business operations and giving our customers control over their 5G services,” said Stephen Bye, executive vice president and chief commercial officer, DISH Wireless.

DISH is currently testing its 5G network using the Samsung Galaxy S22, and plans to continue using Samsung phones as a reference platform throughout the network deployment process.

About DISH
DISH Network Corporation is a connectivity company. Since 1980, it has served as a disruptive force, driving innovation and value on behalf of consumers. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides television entertainment and award-winning technology to millions of customers with its satellite DISH TV and streaming SLING TV services. In 2020, the company became a nationwide U.S. wireless carrier through the acquisition of Boost Mobile. DISH continues to innovate in wireless, building the nation’s first virtualized, O-RAN 5G broadband network. DISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH) is a Fortune 200 company.

¹ n71 (600MHz), n29 (700MHz), n66 (AWS: 1.7GHz/2.1GHz), n70 (AWS: 1.7GHz/1.9GHz), n48 (CBRS: 3.55GHz-3.7GHz), n77 (C-Band: 3.7GHz-3.98GHz)

Over a term of office that begins this April and extends through to 2023, Samsung is set to play a key role in the decision-making undertaken by the O-RAN open source project’s TOC.

Active Participation for the Future of Telecommunications Technologies

Through its participation in the O-RAN Alliance, Samsung has been expanding its influence in the Open RAN domain, an area that is currently in the spotlight thanks to its potential to be the next generation of radio access network (RAN) technology. Over the past two years, the company has been continuously developing open source code for RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC).

Thanks to this pioneering work, Samsung has been elected as an official member of the TOC, the top voting body of the O-RAN SC, along with 11 other companies. JinGuk Jeong, Vice President and Head of Advanced Solutions Team at Samsung Researchh¹‘s Advanced Communications Research Center has now begun his term as the company’s representative to the TOC following the membership offer.

▲ JinGuk Jeong, Vice President and Head of Advanced Solutions Team at Samsung Research’s Advanced Communications Research Center

Setting Standards for Global Specifications and Open Source Software

The O-RAN SC TOC has twelve seats comprised of six global telecommunications operators — AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, NTT Docomo and TIM — and 6 telecommunications equipment and components providers — Samsung Electronics, Ericsson, Nokia, Windriver, Radisys and Viavi.

O-RAN SC is sponsored by O-RAN Alliance, which releases specifications, and it develops and releases their specification compatible software as open source. As a member of the TOC, Samsung is set to play a role in the final approval of the bi-annual open source code release, the establishment of a development roadmap, and in making decisions necessary to ensure alignment with the O-RAN Alliance.

Through the open source leadership secured with this TOC membership, Samsung plans to continue strengthening its advanced research in Network AI (Artificial Intelligence) / ML (Machine Learning) based on O-RAN technology as it expands its influence in other related industries.

¹ Samsung Electronics’ advanced R&D hub, which leads the development of future technologies for its Device eXperience division

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.

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

In June 2021, the companies announced that Vodafone UK selected Samsung as a leading vendor to support a wide-scale 5G commercial deployment based on an Open RAN architecture powered by vRAN in Europe.

“Open RAN can radically evolve the telecoms industry, and we are excited to champion the technology in the UK,” said Andrea Dona, Chief Network Officer, Vodafone UK. “This is an ecosystem which is only a few years old but the progress we have made so far is quite remarkable. Not only have we begun the first scaled deployment in the UK, but we have also installed the first 5G Open RAN site. Open RAN is now a real-world technology and it is truly exciting to see this technology flourish.”

“Samsung is proud to collaborate with Vodafone UK to switch on the UK’s first 5G Open RAN site,” said Thomas Riedel, Head of Samsung Networks Europe at Samsung Electronics. “This will help deliver the benefits of our carrier-grade 5G vRAN solutions to millions of Vodafone UK customers. Through our accumulated commercial 5G vRAN experience with leading operators across major markets globally, we look forward to pushing the boundaries of technological innovation and supporting the 5G journey across Europe.”

In the coming months, Vodafone and Samsung will be testing Samsung vRAN’s telco-grade performance metrics and features, such as security, inter-Radio Access Technology (inter-RAT) mobility and inter-frequency handover, as well as ensuring compliance with Open RAN specifications. Samsung’s fully virtualized, software-based RAN runs on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers, offering features and performance that are equivalent to traditional hardware-based equipment. Using a cloud-native and container-based architecture, the company’s vRAN enables more flexible deployments and network management efficiencies for mobile operators, while helping them meet the demands of deploying new and existing services.

The companies will also test other advanced network technologies that leverage both LTE and 5G technologies to help enhance mobile user experiences. This includes Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS), which assigns time-frequency resources based on traffic demands to accommodate users of both LTE and 5G in the same frequency band, and E-UTRAN New Radio Dual Connectivity (EN-DC), which boosts 5G speeds, reliability and coverage by combining the resources of 4G and 5G networks. Testing will occur in the first half of 2022.

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.

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.

For this collaboration, Samsung will supply its commercial vRAN solutions and O-RAN compliant radios, covering both low-band and mid-band spectrum. The company’s fully virtualized RAN is software-based and runs on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers, offering features and performance that are equivalent to traditional hardware-based equipment. Using a cloud-native and container-based architecture, Samsung’s vRAN enables more flexible deployments and efficiency in network management for mobile operators.

Among the key benefits of the revolutionary architecture is its automation capabilities, which simplify end-to-end network management. With Samsung’s vRAN, operators can quickly meet the evolving demands of new and existing services with minimal impact on deployment. Samsung will also deliver to Vodafone UK its market leading O-RAN compliant 5G radios, including the latest Massive MIMO radios.

“Vodafone is committed to leading the next wave of digital transformation across Europe, ensuring fast and reliable connectivity for all,” said Johan Wibergh, Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone. “Open RAN, built on strong partnerships, is key to realizing this ambition. Samsung’s innovative solutions and expertise are part of the foundation that is creating this network of the future.”

This collaboration with Vodafone marks a first for Samsung, as the company brings its cloud native virtualized RAN technology to a leading operator’s network in Europe. As acknowledged by many in the industry, virtualized RAN and O-RAN technologies will be important to helping evolve network architectures to power the next generation of 5G applications and services. To this end, Samsung has been continuously leading in vRAN innovation, most recently showing the capability to support the multi-gigabit speeds of Massive MIMO radios on COTS servers (Link).

“We are proud that this collaboration with Vodafone—one of the premier carriers in the world—will be the first scaled deployment of our pioneering 5G technologies in Europe, including vRAN and O-RAN,” said Paul Kyungwhoon Cheun, President and Head of Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “This is a major step forward, as more operators are transitioning into new RAN technologies to prioritize user experience and efficiency. We look forward to continue leading the way in 5G innovation to meet our customer’s highest standards of performance, functionality and reliability.”

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 Vodafone

Vodafone is a leading telecommunications company in Europe and Africa. We are the largest mobile and fixed network operator in Europe and a leading global IoT connectivity provider. Our M-Pesa technology platform in Africa enables over 48m people to benefit from access to mobile payments and financial services. We operate mobile and fixed networks in 21 countries and partner with mobile networks in 49 more. As of 31 March 2021, we had over 300m mobile customers, more than 28m fixed broadband customers, over 22m TV customers and we connected more than 123m IoT devices.