Samsung 5G vRAN 3.0 with AI tools coming to North America

Today, Samsung introduced the new 5G vRAN 3.0 and confirmed that it’s planned to roll out in North America in the first half of 2023. The company wishes to make its next-generation virtual RAN capabilities to global operators, starting in America.

The South Korean tech giant has been contributing to the earliest massive commercial adoption of 5G virtualized networks across the world. Notably, it has been the only major vendor that has conducted large-scale commercial vRAN deployments with Tier One operators in America, Europe, and Asia.

As disclosed by Samsung, the new 5G vRAN 3.0 technology is packed with a range of new “smart” features as well as it’s optimized to address the needs of forward-looking operators. Through a graphical roadmap, the company also showcased its vRAN has proved the capabilities of smart networking.

Samsung’s vRAN 3.0 features advanced capabilities including increased bandwidth support of Massive MIMO radios, analyzing hourly traffic patterns to optimize network operating conditions, and automating networks with “sleep mode” to save energy consumption.

“While Samsung’s 5G vRAN has successfully proven its performance by delivering results on par with traditional hardware-based equipment in commercial networks, we are moving fast into the next phase of vRAN software development — Samsung’s vRAN 3.0,” said Ji-Yun Seol, Vice President, Head of Product Strategy, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics.

Samsung’s next-level vRAN capabilities include the following:

Performance Optimization

• 200MHz 3 Cell Support

With a software upgrade, Samsung’s vRAN will be equipped with the ability to provide 3 Cell configuration with 200MHz of bandwidth support using its 64T64R Massive MIMO radios.

• Modem Algorithm Optimization

Modem algorithm optimization enables operators to receive software tailored to their needs, with only the required features and configurations, allowing for an optimized and efficient use of COTS servers.

Power Savings

• CPU Core Sleep Mode
  

This feature reduces power consumption by automatically putting the CPU in “sleep mode” — or turning off unused CPU Cores — during periods of low data traffic.

• Adaptive Core Allocation
  

This feature of Samsung’s vRAN software assigns a number of CPU Cores at cell setup proportional to the number of active cells. Unassigned or unused CPU Cores are set to idle mode to reduce power consumption.

• Energy Saving Feature Orchestrator (ESFO)

ESFO automatically analyzes hourly traffic patterns and optimizes the operating conditions of each Energy Saving feature, per sector and time zone.

The tool constantly updates the multi-level Energy Saving operations of multiple power-saving features — such as cell on/off and Tx path on/off — to reflect traffic pattern changes and prior results.