Taking Initiative Towards Open Innovation

Alongside the push to quickly build, deploy and commercialize 5G networks, there has been a significant rise in industry interest towards open ecosystems over the last five years. At Samsung, it is a part of our corporate DNA to support open innovation – from Android to SmartThings, and beyond. We have always been committed to platforms that enable innovation from a broad set of companies.

Building on our active leadership in initiatives including the Linux Foundation Networking (LFN), the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) project, and the O-RAN Alliance, we have also served as board members, project leaders and code contributors to share our knowledge and skills and help further industry goals. In these organizations, Samsung continues to share its expertise in implementing and integrating RAN interfaces as well as contributing to working products, like development, testing and strategy guidance, which ensure that network components operate effectively and efficiently. For example, Samsung’s recent participation in ONAP included contributions to the main components, the service design, the service orchestration, and policy framework, along with the testing of software for security hardening.

Samsung is expanding our contributions to wireless industry forums that are advancing open networks, including joining the Open RAN Policy Coalition as a founding member. Samsung along with other technology companies came together to promote policies that will advance the adoption of open and interoperable solutions in the Radio Access Network (RAN) as a means to create innovation and expand the vendor ecosystem for advanced wireless technologies including 5G.

Participating in these forums ensures that next-generation network products meet operator needs, while demonstrating the flexibility and reliability of open networks. These industry engagement activities also helped Samsung become a leader in the development of products and solutions that seamlessly integrate with a diverse ecosystem of vendors. Through collaborations with customers and ecosystem partners, Samsung is now supplying equipment to operators who are deploying multi-vendor networks in the US. Samsung’s partnerships with mobile operators deploying open networks create a deep expertise in these solutions.

Samsung fully supports our customers who prefer single supplier based approaches as well as operators embracing the Open RAN philosophy and aim to deploy networks using a modular design that is not dependent upon any one supplier. Participating in multi-vendor ecosystems that leverage open interfaces is fundamental to Samsung, so taking an active role with these networking industry forums is second nature for us.