Samsung and VMO2 roll out new 4G and 5G sites

South Korean tech giant Samsung and UK telco VMO2 have deployed a series of new 4G and 5G sites across the UK.

Following lab tests last year, field trials have been ongoing on the sites in Tamworth and the Peak District since the beginning of this year, and the sites have now been used to completed the first 5G data call on VMO2’s commercial 5G network.

The test apparently demonstrate interoperability between VMO2’s 2G, 3G and 4G networks and Samsung’s latest 4G and 5G solutions and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) kit.

“Samsung is excited to extend our network collaboration with Virgin Media O2 in the U.K., advancing from lab trials to now delivering 4G and 5G in commercial networks out in the field,” said Francis BJ Chun, President and CEO, Samsung Electronics UK. “We look forward to playing a major part of the diversification of the network equipment supply chain in the U.K. market.”

“We are pleased to build on our previous collaboration with Samsung, delivering another 5G milestone in our push to developing Open RAN technologies,” said Jeanie York, CTO at VMO2. “We will continue our collaborative efforts with Samsung to explore the possibilities of 5G and push the technology further to deliver superior end-user experiences for our customers.”

Samsung kit used in the trials include 4G radios, 5G 64T64R Massive MIMO radios for the 3.5GHz spectrum and baseband units. The Samsung radio set up can also be O-RAN compliant after some configuration changes and additional support, a capability you can probably expect most new network deployments to have as long as the current political tailwinds make it pretty much a necessity.

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