This article was originally published on Aug. 31, 2023, and was updated on Sept. 1, 2023, with additional information.

Samsung is officially on board to supply virtualized and open radio access network (vRAN/open RAN) equipment for Vodafone’s initiative to deploy 2,500 disaggregated cell sites across the United Kingdom by 2027. The deal expands on extensive work between the two firms and furthers Vodafone's efforts to replace now-forbidden equipment from China-based vendor Huawei.

The Samsung equipment being installed include its vRAN software that supports multiple radio access technology (4G LTE and 5G) and its O-RAN-compliant radios supporting low- and mid-band spectrum. Those radios include massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) support.

The vendor said its equipment will be used in sites being deployed in Wales and Southwest England, beginning with deployments in Devon.

Joe Madden, founder and chief analyst at Mobile Experts, wrote in a statement that the expansion aligns with Samsung’s recently launched vRAN 3.0 platform.

“The release of vRAN 3.0 comes at a good time, as Samsung is extending its vRAN solutions to this major ‘brownfield’ opportunity,” Madden stated. A brownfield deployment means that an already established operators is integrating new technology into its operations as opposed to a "greenfield" deployment, which would indicate an entirely new network deployment.

"It's not an operator with no subscribers on it and no legacy equipment. It's an existing network operator with lots of existing subscribers," Madden told SDxCentral in an interview. "There's 2G, 3G, 4G legacy all there. And Samsung's going in with others and replacing all that and it's set up in such a way that you can mix-and-match your radios and your software. This is really turning the corner for open RAN."

Vodafone initially brought Samsung into its vRAN and open RAN efforts in mid-2021, when it announced plans for the 2,500 open RAN sites. The first Samsung sites for Vodafone went live in early 2022 in Bath, with deployments later that year in Exmouth and Torquay. Samsung is also supplying vRAN and open RAN equipment to Vodafone for its networks in Germany and Spain.

Vodafone is also working with Intel for general purpose processor, acceleration hardware and network interface cards; Keysight for drive and interoperability testing, highlighted by a new handbook on its efforts; Dell Technologies on the use of its PowerEdge servers; Capgemini as a testing partner in Vodafone’s labs; and Wind River for its cloud network platform.

Vodafone is one of the world’s largest mobile operators, with network-owned and operated services in 21 countries. The carrier began its push toward open RAN following the U.K. government’s mandate that all of that country’s operators replace equipment from China-based vendor Huawei by 2027.

That led European operators like Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Orange and Telefónica to push toward open RAN platforms in an attempt to expand and diversify their vendor options. More recently, those operators released a white paper highlighting advances in meeting challenges tied to maturity, security and energy efficiency.

Samsung’s expanded opportunities with Vodafone are propelling the vendor deeper into what is considered an increasingly lucrative market.

Dell’Oro Group noted in a report earlier this year that the European open RAN market has been slow to develop, but it expects market revenues to top $1 billion by 2027. The analyst firm reported this week that Samsung remained one of the market’s largest players, but added that the vRAN and open RAN posted a dip in revenues for the second quarter, “marking the first quarter of year-over-year contractions since the firm began tracking these next-generation architectures back in 2019.”

Madden added that he is comfortable with how the open RAN market has progressed, with the latest Vodafone news showing increased interest by established operators to start ramping up their deployment efforts.

"I do consider this to be relatively small scale, but it is scale. It's not 10 sites anymore," Madden said. "It's at a level where you can really test the complete working of the network and I think this is the way it's going to be for the next three or four years."

That timing should also help boost Samsung's position in the broader RAN market.

"If you're a small player it's so hard to take customers away from someone because of the legacy infrastructure," Madden said. "What this is showing is that you can go in and replace legacy. This is Samsung proving that it's possible for an operator to drop someone like Nokia or Ericsson and go with something new, and it's OK. ... When we get to 5G-Advanced or 6G networking in 2028, the operators will be looking at what are we going to do? They're going to look at Samsung as a company that has more experience than Ericsson and Huawei with virtual RAN and we're gonna go with them. And so I think it's setting them up well."