Samsung Electronics has Vodafone and AMD in the field of Open RAN technology. The three companies announced today the successful completion of an end-to-end call utilizing the latest AMD processors.
This is the first instance of Open RAN technology being enabled by AMD processors to drive innovation in the telecommunications sector. Further details of this accomplishment will be unveiled at the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona.
The inaugural call took place within Samsung’s R&D facility in Korea and utilized Samsung’s vRAN software, designed to adhere to O-RAN standards. The system was powered by AMD EPYC 8004 Series processors, running on Supermicro’s Telco/Edge servers and supported by Wind River Studio’s Container-as-a-Service (CaaS) platform.
As Open RAN continues to gain prominence, advancements in technology and interoperability testing become important for a more open and efficient telecommunications landscape.
The collaboration aims to empower operators in building and modernizing mobile networks with enhanced flexibility, accelerated time-to-market, and improved performance. Nadia Benabdallah, Network Strategy and Engineering Director at Vodafone Group spoke about the collaboration, stating that it reflects Vodafone’s dedication to driving innovation in mobile network advancement through Open RAN.
Furthermore, the strategic partnership between Samsung and Vodafone aims to modernize legacy networks and strengthen a robust Open RAN ecosystem alongside industry leaders.
June Moon, Executive Vice President & Head of R&D, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics, emphasized the significance of the collective effort, stating, “This collective effort marks a key milestone for the mobile network industry to steer Open RAN forward, by embracing multiple providers at every layer of the network stack. The demo illustrates Samsung’s commitment to delivering the full potential of mobile networks by embracing openness. Samsung is constantly working with other technology frontrunners to offer operators the means to transform their networks and capitalize on the diversity of the Open RAN ecosystem.”
Kumaran Siva, corporate vice president, Strategic Market Development, AMD, highlighted the importance of optimized performance and energy efficiency, stating, “The telco industry continues to demand new levels of performance and energy efficiency with increasingly complex workloads and stringent efficiency targets. AMD EPYC 8004 Series CPUs are optimized for modern edge and vRAN deployment models to enable the telco industry’s current evolution toward truly end-to-end open, virtualized networks.”
“We are extremely proud of our collaboration with Samsung and Vodafone, leveraging our latest data center processors to modernize legacy telco infrastructure and deliver the leadership Open RAN performance, efficiency and scalability needed to build highly innovative mobile networks,” he added.
Prakash Sangam, Founder & Principal of Tantra Analyst, highlighted the importance of the technical achievement, stating, “As the telecom industry continues to rapidly evolve, Samsung and its ecosystem partners are at the forefront of innovation and transformation. This technical achievement between Samsung, Vodafone, and AMD validates the enhanced capabilities among all three companies’ solutions and supports new vendors in the evolving Open RAN ecosystem.”
The demonstration showcased the test result surpassing 1Gbps throughput for multi UE on a multi-cell configuration.
With ongoing expansions in collaboration, such as the largest Open RAN rollout in the U.K. in August 2023 and the recent collaboration with AMD to advance 5G vRAN and virtualized Open RAN, Samsung continues to invest in network transformation and innovation in the telecommunications industry.
Samsung plans to validate its virtualized RAN (vRAN) and Open RAN solutions to provide network operators with efficient pathways to market entry. Leveraging its extensive expertise in commercial networks, Samsung has established a strong presence with Tier 1 operators across North America, Europe, and Asia.
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