When it comes to building a successful ecosystem, the work has to be broad and deep. That, said Derek Johnston, head of 5G marketing and business development at Samsung Networks, is exactly the work that Samsung Networks has been doing in Open RAN and virtualized RAN.
The company recently put out a series of announcements ranging from support of Vodafone’s large-scale deployment of Open RAN across 2,500 mobile sites in Wales and the southwest of England, to a silicon-focused partnership with AMD involving the integration of Samsung’s vRAN software with AMD processors for an optimal balance of capacity and power efficiency.
“We’ve really been working in earnest in advancing our virtualized RAN platform,” Johnston said. “As the operators have started to migrate more towards Open RAN and virtualized RAN, we took an early investment there and we’ve been really trying to build on our solution and effectively build out the ecosystem as well, to give operators the confidence to transform their networks.”
When asked about the importance of virtualization, Johnston responded that Samsung Networks fundamentally believes that virtualization is the direction the industry is heading. But you don’t have to take Samsung’s word for it, he added—leading technology-forward operators like Japan’s KDDI, Europe’s Vodafone Group, and Verizon in the U.S. are all investing in vRAN networks.
“All of those folks have invested heavily in changing their networks to software-defined RAN technology,” he pointed out. And from Samsung Networks’ perspective, he added, “We believe that we have a lead in the technology and proving that you can deliver the performance levels, support the capacity that’s needed in things like massive MIMO technology that’s required in 5G and ultimately will be required in 6G technology.”
Being part of an ecosystem also means taking the stance of assuming that operator customers will have a variety of vendors and focusing not on being a “one-size-fits-all” solution but focusing on how to help operators solve network challenges, Johnston added.
“We believe that as you disaggregate, you really need to have multiple options, whether it’s the [communications applications server] provider, whether it’s at the silicon layer, whether it’s in automation and orchestration platforms,” he said. Ultimately, that drives innovation across the industry, Johnston said.
“The objective of the industry as a whole is to really drive as much performance and as much capacity, and to be as efficient as possible and I think to do that, you have to have innovation at every level of the stack,” he reflected. “I think that’s why we’re so committed to working with our ecosystem partners, to help drive that and I think that’s what we’ve been able to show with our virtualized RAN platform.”
Watch the full video interview below and learn more about Samsung Networks’ vRAN solutions at: https://www.samsung.com/global/business/networks/products/radio-access/virtualized-ran/
