News
After initial lab trials beginning in October, the site is now being opened commercially
This week, Samsung and O2 Telefonica have announced the launch of their first German virtualised RAN (vRAN) and Open RAN commercial site in Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria. It is the first time that Samsung’s 5G vRAN has been used in a German commercial network.
The launch follows their collaboration announced in October 2023, where the two companies pledged to test vRAN and Open RAN technologies. Now, following successful trials, they are‘re moving from lab testing in Munich to real-world deployment, with plans to expand to seven more sites in the area.
The trial builds on more efficient and advanced RAN technology. Open RAN provides greater flexibility and choice when building mobile networks. It allows operators to mix and match components from different vendors, promoting innovation and a more diverse supply chain.
Both vRAN and Open RAN aim to increase flexibility and enable innovation in mobile networks, and they both leverage virtualisation to promote a more open and interoperable network. But software-centric vRAN helps the adoption of cloud-native architecture, allowing network operators to better automate functions and introduce new technologies and services to their networks quickly and efficiently. This is important for accelerating network buildouts and adopting new 5G applications, such as augmented reality and use cases that require low latency.
“On the way to the network of the future, we are integrating new network solutions to provide our customers with outstanding connectivity. Open RAN is a building block that can help us to automate our network, deploy new updates faster and use network components more flexibly,” said Mallik Rao, Chief Technology & Information Officer of O2 Telefonica in a statement.
According to Samsung, the next steps for the two companies will include deploying Samsung’s intelligent network automation solutions to “control life cycle management”. This automation solution will accelerate software-based network updates by automating the process, impacting thousands of network sites simultaneously.
Join us at this year’s Connected Germany event, 5-6 November in Munich. Get tickets here!
Also in the news:
T-Mobile and EQT form JV to buy Lumos
Korean Air shows off comprehensive urban air mobility system backed by 5G
Virgin Media O2 reaches plastic waste milestone