Munich, Germany / Seoul, South Korea - Telefónica Deutschland and Samsung Electronics have announced a collaboration to test 5G and Open RAN technologies in Germany.
The trials will test Virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) and Open RAN solutions in lab and live network environments.
Why It Matters:
Telefónica Germany's trials of Samsung's 5G vRAN and Open RAN technologies represent a milestone in transitioning to virtualized, open, and automated mobile network architectures.
If successful, it could accelerate the adoption of Open RAN in Europe.
The Key Points
- Telefónica Deutschland, a prominent German operator, will test Samsung's solutions in lab and live 5G network environments. Initial lab tests will occur in Munich, followed by field tests in Landsberg am Lech on a commercial 5G network.
- It's part of Telefónica's strategy to transform its architecture to a cloud-native, automated model. O2 Telefónica, with a customer base of over 44 million mobile connections and revenues of EUR 8.2 billion in 2022, is looking to modernize its network.
- Open RAN promises long-term flexibility and efficiency benefits through multi-vendor interoperability. However, commercial deployment of Open RAN remains limited due to technical challenges, and Samsung's role as an Open RAN leader lends credibility to the trials.
What They Say:
"Cloud-native and autonomous networks are central to accelerating innovation and 5G services,"
said Mallik Rao, CTIO, Telefónica Germany.
"Samsung is leading the advancement of vRAN and Open RAN with its proven expertise in large-scale commercial networks across multiple continents,"
said Junehee Lee, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Sales and marketing, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics.
What Comes Next?
The next phase will include more extensive field trials and may also explore intelligent network automation solutions for lifecycle management.
Samsung's Service Management and Orchestration (SMO), an Open RAN-compliant tool, will facilitate these automated deployments.
Successful demonstrations could encourage other European operators to adopt Open RAN.
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