Samsung Completes Industry-First Commercial 6G-Ready vRAN Call

Samsung has made a big step forward in mobile network technology. The company has recently completed the industry’s first commercial call using a virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN). This suggests that the firm’s vRAN can help operator make 6G-ready networks.

Samsung’s vRAN paves the way for 6G-ready networks

In 2024, Samsung completed the first end-to-end vRAN call in a lab environment with Intel Xeon 6 SoC. Now, the company has achieved another breakthrough with a commercial call on a live Tier 1 US operator network. For the call, the company used vRAN on a single commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) server from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The system runs on a cloud platform from Wind River. It features the Intel Xeon 6700P-B processor series (with up to 72 cores).

“This breakthrough represents a major leap forward in network virtualization and efficiency. It confirms the real-world readiness of this latest technology under live network conditions, demonstrating that single-server vRAN deployments can meet the stringent performance and reliability standards required by leading carriers,” said June Moon, Executive Vice President, Head of R&D, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “We are not only deploying more sustainable, cost-effective networks, but also laying the foundation to fully utilize AI capabilities more easily and prepare for 6G with our end-to-end software-driven network solutions.”

Samsung’s vRAN lets operators run a host of network functions, such as mobile core, radio access, transport, and security, on a single server. As such, operators can easily manage complex site configurations. Previously, these functions required multiple servers. Intel’s latest Xeon 6 SoC plays a key role in advancing vRAN. Thanks to Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions (Intel AMX) and Intel vRAN boosts, the processor offers faster AI processing, improved memory bandwidth, and lower energy use.

Samsung continues to push the limits of network virtualization to help operators achieve better performance and reliability. The company’s ongoing research and development is advancing 5G and paving the way for 6G. It offers a bunch of network solutions such as RAN, vRAN, Open RAN, AI-RAN, and AI-powered automation tools.