Korean company Samsung Electronics announced it will be one of the first vendors to participate in the opening of Orange’s Open RAN Integration Center in Paris, France.
As part of the agreement, the two companies will collaborate to disaggregate the hardware and software elements of the traditional Radio Access Network. Samsung’s virtualized RAN (vRAN) will be used in the collaboration.
French telecommunications group Orange, which provides mobile services to 222 million users in 26 countries including Europe, Africa and the Middle East, plans to deploy O-RAN Alliance-compliant base stations starting with indoor and rural configurations and expand to new deployments in the coming years.
“Open RAN is a major evolution of radio access that requires deeper cooperation within the industry. With our European peers, we want to accelerate the development of Open RAN solutions that meet our needs. After the publication of common specifications, Orange’s Open RAN Integration Center will support the development and tuning of solutions from a broad variety of actors,” said Arnaud Vamparys, SVP of Radio Access Networks and Microwaves at Orange.
Samsung said its vRAN supports both low and mid-band spectrums, as well as indoor and outdoor solutions. Samsung has already conducted vRAN commercial deployments with Tier-one operators in North America, Europe and Asia.
At the center, Samsung and Orange will conduct trials to verify capabilities and performance of Samsung’s vRAN, radio and Massive MIMO radio.
“We are pleased to participate in Orange’s innovative laboratory,” said Woojune Kim, EVP and head of global sales and marketing for the Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Through this collaboration, we look forward to taking networks to new heights in the European market, enabling operators to offer more immersive mobile services to their users.”
Earlier this week, Orange officially inaugurated its Open RAN Integration Center, with the aim of enabling companies from the O-RAN ecosystem to test and validate their products and services.
Orange’s O-RAN facility is located at Orange Gardens in Châtillon, near Paris. It will be accessible to equipment suppliers of the Open RAN ecosystem, start-ups and system integrators, wishing to test the operation and interoperability of their components with those of other suppliers. The Open RAN Integration Center network will also be remotely accessible.
This laboratory – the first to be dedicated to Open RAN technology in France and the fourth in Europe – was awarded the OTIC (Open Testing and Integration Center) label by the O-RAN Alliance, of which Orange is a founding member.
