Samsung strikes deal with Vodafone for Open RAN in Romania

Samsung ran a pilot project with Vodafone in Romania last year and completed the first 4G calls over shared commercial Open RAN in rural areas. Now, the Korean tech giant announced it has partnered with Vodafone to deploy fully virtualized RAN and radios across Romania. Samsung is supporting Vodafone's Open RAN initiative to transition to an open network architecture in both rural and urban areas.

Samsung's vRAN solutions for Vodafone support multi-RAT, automation solutions, and Open RAN-compliant triple-band (700MHz, 800MHz, and 900MHz) and 5G Massive MIMO radios.

The solution Samsung will deliver to Vodafone Romania offers high-quality, stable commercial network services in major urban cities and combines triple-band radios within one compact radio for multi-spectrum coverage of 2G, 4G, and 5G.

Vodafone wants Open RAN at 30% of Europe's sites by 2030

The vRAN software from Samsung supports multiple generations of network technologies. Samsung says 2G remains an important spectrum for IoST (Internet of Small Things) solutions, M2M (machine-to-machine) communications, and voice for roaming services in Europe.

Vodafone first adopted 5G Open Ran in the UK in 2022, and the telecommunications company has been making progress in Europe since. Vodafone wants to equip 30% of all European sites with Open RAN before 2030. However, a timeframe for when Samsung will finish its commercial deployment across major urban cities in Romania hasn't been mentioned.

Samsung says its collaboration with Vodafone for this 5G rollout in Romania “will mark a significant milestone that underscores our dedication to network innovation.” The company added that its network solutions “will propel Vodafone Romania's transformation journey” through a powerful and flexible way to realize Open RAN's full potential.

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Mihai Matei - Senior Editor

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First Samsung device: SGH-A800

Mihai is a blogger and column writer at SamMobile. His first Samsung phone was an A800 which took a lot of beating, and a part of him still misses the novelty of the clamshell design. In his free time, he enjoys watching shows, documentaries, and stand-up comedy; listening to music, taking walks, and occasionally playing old(er) video games.

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