Samsung said the pilot supports Orange’s strategy to diversify suppliers and adopt flexible, cloud-based networks
Orange France and Samsung have completed the first 4G and 5G calls on a virtualized RAN (vRAN) and Open RAN network in southwestern France, marking a key milestone in their strategic partnership to advance open, software-based mobile infrastructure.
The pilot moves Orange’s Open RAN ambitions from the lab to the field, following comprehensive testing in Orange’s Lyon labs that the pair said demonstrated technical and operational readiness. Field trials showed strong potential for high-quality, reliable network performance using Samsung’s vRAN technology, according to both companies.
The pilot is part of Orange’s broader strategy to diversify its supplier base and adopt more flexible, cloud-based network architectures. The companies plan to expand testing to additional sites in southwestern and western France by the end of 2025.
Samsung supplied vRAN solutions with support for multiple radio bands, including triple-band O-RAN-compliant radios for low- and mid-band spectrum bands (700MHz, 800MHz, 900MHz, 1.8GHz, 2.1GHz and 2.6GHz) and 3.5GHz 32T32R Massive MIMO radios. Samsung’s CognitiV Network Operations Suite, including AI-powered orchestration tools, is also being used to automate network operations and support zero-touch provisioning.
Emmanuel Lugagne Delpon, CTO Networks at Orange France, called the successful first call “an important milestone” and said it “paves the way for our future cloud RAN deployment.” June Moon, executive vice president at Samsung Networks, said the project demonstrates how Samsung’s vRAN and Open RAN technologies can “provide high-quality and reliable connectivity” while enabling French operators to introduce AI and other emerging technologies into their networks.
Samsung’s partners for the pilot include Dell Technologies (servers), Intel (processors), and Wind River (cloud platform). The project builds on the companies’ earlier collaboration, including a joint 2G vRAN call over Open RAN in Romania last year.
The successful pilot highlights continued industry momentum toward open, virtualized radio access networks, which promise to reduce costs, improve flexibility, and accelerate innovation by decoupling hardware and software in mobile networks.
The pilot also reflects Orange’s broader strategy around cloud-native 5G best practices, outlined by the company’s Innovation Networks Senior Project Manager Ilhem Fajjari during last year’s Telco Cloud and Edge Forum. Fajjari detailed key principles for cloud-native transformation — including leveraging virtualization, avoiding vendor over-dependence, and a key focus on AI and new supplier relationships — all of which are evident in the deployment of Samsung’s vRAN and Open RAN solutions. More on that here.
