The site uses Samsung’s kit and is part of the joint development announced with the operator last year – more sites and network automation to follow
Telefónica Germany and Samsung Electronics have launched their first commercial virtualised RAN (vRAN) and Open RAN after “extensive trials”.
The site, at Landsberg am Lech in Bavaria, is the first deployment of Samsung’s 5G vRAN in a commercial network in Germany. It will provide 4G and 5G services. The companies say they will expand the vRAN and Open RAN network to seven more sites in the region “in the coming months”.
For the initial deployments, Samsung’s solution includes its 4G and 5G vRAN 3.0 and O-RAN compliant radios. They support low- and mid-bands (700MHz, 800MHz, 1.8GHz 2.1GHz, 2.6GHz and 3.6GHz), including 64T64R Massive MIMO.
Next, the companies will introduce Samsung’s intelligent network automation solutions to control life cycle management, from deployment and operation to maintenance.
The automation solution is O-RAN compliant and is designed to accelerate the roll out of software-based network by enabling the automated deployment of thousands of network sites simultaneously.
Joint initiative
The companies announced a joint initiative, announced in October 2023, when they agreed to develop a roadmap for several tests of vRAN and Open RAN technologies.
They say this is just three months after the initial shipment of 4G and 5G solutions, “leveraging Samsung’s expertise and pre-validated ecosystem proven from large-scale commercial vRAN and Open RAN deployments across the globe,” according to the press statement.
Mallik Rao, CTIO at O2 Telefónica Germany said, “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.”
In February 2023, Samsung also announced plans with Vodafone to launch Open RAN in European markets including Germany.