Samsung pairs with Liberty for vRAN and Open RAN testing in Puerto Rico

Samsung has partnered with Liberty Puerto Rico to test the vendor's Open RAN virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) and radios in Liberty's mobile network in Puerto Rico. As a result, Liberty is the first carrier in Puerto Rico and Latin America to introduce 5G vRAN and Open RAN technologies.

The software-based vRAN provided by Samsung will help Liberty to virtualize the RAN processing and its functionalities in an elastic cloud environment. According to Samsung, this will boost performance, improve energy efficiency, and deliver a flexible architecture to introduce new technologies and services more quickly.

“The biggest advantage of vRAN and Open RAN is that it allows us to be more agile. By having the cell site information processing centralized in Liberty’s cloud-native data center and leveraging the latest software-centric solutions, the implementation, maintenance, and troubleshooting is a lot easier for operators to handle at a single location,” said Víctor Vera, senior director of RAN technology at Liberty. “This is especially valuable when it comes to recovery efforts during a natural disaster or emergency situations.”

“vRAN and Open RAN are cutting-edge technologies that are driving innovation in commercial networks and further bolstering 5G capabilities," added Carlos Alberto Aguilar Palafox, head of Samsung Networks Latin America.