Towards the end of last year, Samsung and AT&T announced an important milestone in the quest to create a new open RAN architecture: the creation of a successful data session using the enhanced Common Public Radio Interface (eCPRI.) AT&T, a leader in the open RAN movement, hosted the demonstration over millimeter-wave radio network communications equipment in their 5G Lab in Redmond, WA.1 The open interface approach will help network operators increase the pace of 5G deployments and will facilitate faster development and implementation of new RAN services.
Blog
Samsung and AT&T Achieve Open RAN Milestone
Feb 26. 2020Samsung’s Successful Collaboration
Samsung is proud to be part of the activities in AT&T’s 5G Lab in Redmond, where we demonstrated Samsung 39 GHz End-to-End solution using eCPRI interface between Samsung 39 GHz Radio and Samsung 5G BaseBand Unit (BBU). The validation activities in AT&T’s facility show that the industry’s collaboration of open RAN and eCPRI are on track for commercial delivery.
eCPRI is an efficient interface for the “fronthaul,” which is the link between the Radio Unit (RU) and the BBU. The eCPRI interface allows the RU to perform some of the functionality traditionally performed by the BBU. This approach reduces the bandwidth requirements of the fronthaul link, which prior CPRI interface didn’t allow. With this architecture, the operator can deliver higher end user data rates per fiber connection. The open eCPRI interface also enables network operators to select the RAN products from different vendors that best fit their particular service requirements.
This demonstration using Samsung’s millimeter-wave end-to-end solution proves the operational effectiveness of the eCPRI link. It also proves that Open RAN Network can provide all the key benfits of 5G from speed, latency and reliability by using Open fronthaul interfaces. With less required fronthaul, operators have an option to choose the most suitable products, Operators like AT&T provide high-speed 5G services to areas where prior products could not cost-effectively offer service. –This milestone represents a significant achievement that enables the implementation of other operationally essential services that are crucial to the delivery of an open RAN architecture.
This innovation certainly indicates excellent progress in the development and adoption of the open architecture. Our involvement in the standardization activities and resulting solution development continues to deliver products that will interoperate and optimize present and future networks. At Samsung, we are fostering our industry partnerships to build a robust open RAN ecosystem. Our active participation in various open RAN industry collaboration initiatives – notably O-RAN Alliance and our contributions to the creation of the xRAN Fronthaul specification – demonstrates our firm commitment to provide products to an ecosystem that delivers value to mobile operators.
Samsung further collaborates with service provider partners to jointly identify and agree on the requirements for products that enable new open RAN functionalities in commercial deployments. As an established pioneer in evolving access network technologies, we endorse and actively participate in the drive to create a viable open RAN environment.