ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—Dish Network Corporation has announced that Samsung Electronics was selected for the deployment of 5G Open Radio Access Network solutions across Dish Wireless’ Smart 5G network.
As part of the multi-year agreement, the companies will collaborate to deploy Samsung’s 5G O-RAN-compliant virtualized RAN (vRAN) solutions and radio units in markets across the U.S., supporting Dish’s 5G commercial services.
In addition, the companies said that the agreement will extend to retail wireless customers, providing them with leading-edge 5G devices for use on Dish Wireless’ Smart 5G network.
Dish is currently testing its 5G network using the Samsung Galaxy S22, and plans to continue using Samsung phones as a reference platform throughout the network deployment process.
“Samsung’s 5G solutions will play an integral role in our network expansion, giving us the flexibility to deploy our cloud-native network with software-based solutions that support advanced services and operational scalability,” said John Swieringa, president and chief operating officer, Dish Wireless. “We look forward to working with Samsung, whose industry leadership in vRAN and O-RAN innovation will help support our vision of delivering open, interoperable cloud-based 5G services to consumers and enterprises across the U.S.”
Samsung Networks Business will supply Dish Wireless with its 5G and RAN solutions, vRAN software and a variety of O-RAN compliant radio units, including Massive MIMO radios.
Samsung’s vRAN can operate on any commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) server, while still delivering performance on par with traditional hardware-based equipment, the companies said.
With its cloud-native architecture, Dish Wireless’ Open RAN deployment is based on open interfaces, allowing for multi-vendor interoperability and various deployment scenarios. The Samsung radios will also support all of Dish’s Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) spectrum bands (including n71, n29, n66, n70, n48 and n77).
