Vodafone today cemented itself as the open radio access network (RAN) leader in Europe, claiming it will deploy the first commercial network of its type on the continent with a big assist from Samsung.

It’s a significant win for the South Korean vendor, which is determined to gain a bigger share of the RAN market by targeting opportunities across a more broad geography. Open RAN and virtualized RAN (vRAN) factor prominently in Samsung’s strategy.

Samsung released its first 5G vRAN portfolio earlier this year following its blockbuster RAN agreement with Verizon, which was the first operator to commercially deploy the new equipment. 

Vodafone, which previously deployed a trio of 4G LTE open RAN sites in the United Kingdom, said it will initially focus its open RAN deployment efforts across 2,500 sites in the southwest of England and most of Wales. It plans to make use of the technology in urban centers further down the line. 

The operator also earlier this year joined its three largest competitors in signing a pledge to support the deployment of open RAN across Europe, collectively calling it “the technology of choice for future mobile networks.”

Vodafone said its 5G open RAN push in the U.K., which will also be supported by Dell Technologies, NEC, Wind River, Capgemini Engineering, and Keysight Technologies, will be one of the largest deployments of open RAN in the world to date.

Rakuten Mobile currently holds claim to the world’s most broadly deployed open RAN 5G network, and Dish Network, which intends to blanket the U.S. with a 5G open RAN, claims its on track to begin deploying service in multiple cities before the end of the year.

Many of Vodafone’s sites being readied for open RAN are likely former Huawei sites. The U.K. government required mobile operators to remove all Huawei equipment from their networks by 2027, and the operator said about a third of those sites will be replaced with open RAN equipment.

“Open RAN provides huge advantages for customers. Our network will become highly programmable and automated, meaning we can release new features simultaneously across multiple sites, add or direct capacity more quickly, resolve outages instantly, and provide businesses with on-demand connectivity,” Vodafone CTO Johan Wibergh said in a statement.

“Open RAN is also reinvigorating our industry. It will boost the digital economy by stimulating greater tech innovation from a wider pool of vendors, bringing much needed diversity to the supply chain,” he added. 

Samsung said it will provide Vodafone with vRAN and open RAN compliant radios for low- and mid-band spectrum, including 5G radios with massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO). It marks the first large open RAN contract for the vendor in Europe, according to Samsung, which claims its system is already competitive with traditional RAN architecture.

“While there has been industry discussions that suggest that vRAN performance could be lower than purpose built, vendor-specific solutions, Samsung’s vRAN offers proof that performance equal to traditional hardware-based equipment is achievable, Farook Hussan, senior direct of technology at Samsung’s Network Division, recently wrote in response to questions.

Samsung will also be a reference RAN software provider for Vodafone, which is using massive MIMO radios from Samsung and NEC for the effort. The first wave of deployments will ride on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers supporting virtualized central units and distributed units, according to the carrier.

Those servers will run cloud-based container software from Wind River, while Keysight and Capgemini will provide testing and integration support, Vodafone explained. The operator also said it will continue working with multiple chipset suppliers to boost the performance and development of silicon for open RAN.

Vodafone is working with Intel and recently inked a collaborative agreement with Qualcomm in a bid to publish a technical blueprint for vendors to build 5G vRAN and open RAN equipment with a portfolio of silicon that Qualcomm plans to begin sampling in the first half of 2022. 

Qualcomm officially set its sights on a return to the RAN infrastructure market in late 2020 with a trio of chipset platforms, and multiple global operators are supporting that effort. 

Vodafone also earlier this month claimed it doubled the capacity of a 5G cell site used by multiple customers in an open RAN trial in the U.K. with the use of a programmable, artificial intelligence-based RAN intelligent controller (RIC).

Finally, the operator said it will open new research and development centers in Málaga, Spain and Dresden, Germany later this year to support its open RAN activities, including the advancement of new business applications, private networks, and cybersecurity.

Vodafone said the deployment of Samsung’s open RAN equipment will get underway this year.