• Orange has long included Open RAN as part of its next-generation network infrastructure plan
• It has been testing and trialling various tech options for a while
• Now it has completed a trial in France with Samsung Networks, with which the operator already has Open RAN experience in Romania
• But this is not likely to herald an immediate rush into mass Open RAN deployments by Orange

Orange Group, one of the most vocal telco supporters of Open RAN, has concluded a virtual RAN (vRAN) and Open RAN pilot in a city in south-west France ahead of an expansion of the next-generation mobile access infrastructure technology at additional sites in south-west and western parts of France by the end of 2025. 

But, as Orange executives have explained many times, the operator is taking a measured approach to its Open RAN rollout and although this is a positive step with Samsung Networks, it isn’t set to herald a mass rollout of Open RAN technology in the near term. 

It does, though, suggest that Samsung has a role to play in Orange’s future RAN plans. The operator has put vRAN and Open RAN technology from multiple vendors (including Ericsson and Nokia) through its paces in its labs, but the telco has real-world experience with Samsung’s RAN technology in Romania. Here, the operator teamed up with Vodafone for a shared Open RAN network pilot using technology from Samsung (multi-radio access technology software and radios), Dell (servers) and Wind River (cloud platform). The trial began in 2023 and was expanded in mid-2024. 

The same technology combination is being used again in south-west France, and is being touted by Samsung as “part of Orange’s strategy to diversify its supplier ecosystem”. 

For this French pilot, Samsung provided its vRAN solutions with multi-generational support, O-RAN compliant triple-band radios for low- and mid-bands (700MHz, 800MHz, 900MHz, 1.8GHz, 2.1GHz and 2.6GHz), and 3.5GHz 32T32R massive MIMO radios. It also provided its Samsung CognitiV Network Operations Suite (NOS) and other AI applications and software solutions, including an AI-powered service management orchestration (SMO) system. “This simplifies network automation and enables zero-touch provisioning, ultimately helping Orange France rapidly adopt new technologies and emerging services in the network,” noted the vendor.

As part of the pilot, the partners successfully completed 4G and 5G calls over Samsung’s vRAN infrastructure. “This first call on a virtualised RAN in France, based on Samsung technology, paves the way for our future cloud RAN deployment,” stated Emmanuel Lugagne Delpon, CTO of Networks at Orange France. “This important milestone is the result of efficient cooperation between Samsung and Orange teams, and the promise to get new achievements through this partnership.”

June Moon, executive VP, Head of R&D, at Samsung Networks, stated, “We are proud to take part in Orange France’s journey toward next-generation networks. Samsung’s globally proven vRAN and Open RAN solutions will not only provide high-quality and reliable connectivity, but also offer the optimal ground for bringing transformative technologies like AI to the network in France.”

The move is good news for Samsung, which is trying to embed itself in multiple RAN evolution strategies in Europe: It is already a strategic Open RAN partner to Vodafone and hoping to get a decent slice of the action in Vodafone’s ‘Spring 6’ RAN refresh, which is now overdue (cynics may soon start to call it Winter 6). 

Orange has long said it will gradually introduce Open RAN across its various markets and demand Open RAN support from vendors as it issues new network upgrade tenders, and having proclaimed in November last year that Open RAN is “now ready for large scale deployment”. 

But as Atoosa Hatefi, director of innovation in radio and environment at Orange, explained to TelecomTV last year, “The deployment of Open RAN and its introduction in our networks will be gradual. As a brownfield operator, we have very demanding requirements and the introduction of Open RAN comes with some impacts in terms of operations, which requires lots of upskilling on our side. That’s why we are considering this migration from traditional RAN to Open RAN as a journey.”

And in terms of vendor engagement, Hatefi noted that “in the initial phase, pre-integrated solutions bundled with well-established vendors could actually speed up the readiness of deployable solutions,” while in the longer term, multivendor deployments might be possible once coordinated testing and certification processes are up and running to support the needs of operators and specialist vendors.  

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV