Samsung Electronics and Ciena joined forces to provide both hardware and software 5G networks offerings, thus giving telecom operators an alternative to the two major Western mobility vendors: Nokia and Ericsson.

“It's about bringing together wireless with wireline,” said Joe Marsella, VP of product line management at Ciena. “Together we can form a pretty strong solution that enables operators a third choice out there in the market, which we think is a combination of best-of-breed components.”

Samsung claimed the partnership provides an end-to-end, pre-integrated system. It combines Samsung’s 5G radio access network (RAN) and core capabilities that include virtualized RAN (vRAN) solutions, baseband units, and radios, with Ciena’s xHaul routing and switching portfolio and Manage, Control, and Plan (MCP) domain controller.

Ciena defines xHaul as fronthaul, midhaul, backhaul, and wholesale. Its xHaul portfolio includes the 5100 series xHaul routers that complement Samsung’s “next-generation radios,” Marsella told SDxCentral.

Ciena “provides the ability to have the lowest latency in the transport network with the highest bandwidth to enable Samsung or open solution set to be able to run across that in the most optimal way for the application set,” he added.

The collaboration also aims to accelerate the deploy of 5G applications such as automation, IoT, and network slicing.

“In order to deliver more powerful 5G services, the current network architecture needs to evolve,” said Wonil Roh, SVP and head of product strategy for Samsung Electronics' network business. “Samsung’s ability to couple our best-in-class 5G solutions with a leader in transport technologies like Ciena will give customers a solution to address this need, and do so with the confidence to scale and evolve their networks to support the future of 5G.”

As for partnering with Samsung, Marsella described it as a "natural" choice since they don’t have overlapping portfolios but have the same competitors like Nokia and Ericsson.

Dell’Oro Group VP Stefan Pongratz also pointed out the two vendors have no material overlap. “Ciena’s telecom equipment revenues are primarily driven by its optical transport and SP switch portfolio while Samsung focuses on the RAN and mobile core markets,” he said.

Additionally, the two companies have very similar cultures despite being on opposite sides of the planet, Marsella added. Thanks to geography, he emphasized that the agreement has no restriction or priority on any specific country or region. “It is global in nature.”

Ciena also benefits from the agreement, Marsella said. “That shift from transport people deciding backhaul to RAN people deciding fronthaul is happening as people move to more fronthaul-centric architectures,” he said. “That's why it's beneficial to us to be able to engage with the RAN parts of our customer base along with Samsung.”

Dell’Oro Group has been tracking router/switch, transport, mobile core, and RAN markets for a while, and the firm’s data suggests “​operators have historically not prioritized E2E offerings across all of these domains,” according to Pongratz.

However, he noted that “as the backhaul becomes fronthaul, the transport requirements will change, which could impact the value of pre-integrated solutions.”