Orange France and Samsung Electronics have launched a field pilot for virtualized RAN (vRAN) and Open RAN in southwestern France, marking a key milestone in their strategic partnership. The two companies successfully completed 4G and 5G calls using Samsung’s vRAN and O-RAN-compliant radios across multiple frequency bands, including a 32T32R Massive MIMO unit operating in the 3.5GHz band. This follows rigorous lab validation at Orange’s Lyon facilities.
The pilot signals Orange’s broader commitment to diversify its RAN supplier ecosystem and shift toward more open, software-driven network architectures. Samsung’s solution stack includes its CognitiV Network Operations Suite and AI-powered SMO to support Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP), enhancing operational agility and enabling rapid deployment of new services. The companies plan to expand deployments to additional sites across southwestern and western France by year-end.
Samsung’s platform integrates with technologies from Dell Technologies (servers), Intel (processors), and Wind River (cloud platform). This partnership builds on the companies’ prior work, including the world’s first 2G vRAN call over a shared Open RAN network in Romania. The joint initiative reflects a growing trend in Europe toward network sharing and cloud-native, disaggregated infrastructure to reduce costs and power consumption.
• Field pilot conducted in southwestern France using Samsung vRAN and O-RAN radios
• Multi-band support includes 700MHz to 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz Massive MIMO
• Expansion to more French sites expected by end of 2025
• Integration includes AI-powered orchestration and Zero Touch Provisioning
• Ecosystem partners: Dell, Intel, Wind River
“This first call on a virtualized RAN in France, based on Samsung technology, paves the way for our future cloud RAN deployment,” said Emmanuel Lugagne Delpon, CTO Networks at Orange France.
