Samsung completes Open RAN conformance and interoperability testing with Verizon

Samsung Electronics has concluded Open RAN (O-RAN) conformance and interoperability testing for commercial-grade LTE and 5G NR radios for Verizon's network, the South Korean firm announced on Tuesday. The tests were carried out in Samsung's lab in Dallas, Texas.

"We're excited to achieve Open RAN conformance across five key radios in our portfolio compliant with the latest O-RAN and 3GPP standards. This joint work shows how Samsung is empowering forerunning operators like Verizon to deploy virtualized Open RAN, backed by our strong ecosystem and proven expertise in commercial networks for Tier 1 operators in North America, Europe and Asia," said Jisha Hall, Vice President of Operations, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics America.

The testing leveraged Samsung's market-leading radios compliant with O-RAN specifications including CAT-A radios 4T4R supporting 700/850 MHz and AWS/PCS bands, CAT-B 64T64R Massive MIMO C-Band radios and 16T16R C-band and CBRS dual-band radios.

The testing across a portfolio of radios demonstrates Samsung's virtualized Open RAN leadership and the capability to handle advanced Massive MIMO radio integration, which is more complex for 64T64R Massive MIMO radios compared to simple CAT-A radios.

Using Keysight Technologies' O-RAN distributed unit (O-DU) emulator, Samsung and Verizon tested O-RAN mandatory and optional beamforming capabilities in the same Massive MIMO unit and delivered promised performance gains, helping ensure that new O-RAN networks will perform as expected while delivering the full capabilities that next-generation 5G solutions enable.

Commenting on this milestone, Steven Rice, Vice President of Network Planning, Verizon, said, "O-RAN is a very important component of our network evolution strategy. By leveraging O-RAN radios and software-driven infrastructure with industry-leading partners like Samsung and Keysight, we continue to drive the industry towards a more open, interoperable environment which will provide greater flexibility, greater innovation and better performance for our customers."