Claiming an industry first, Samsung and Japanese operator KDDI have reported successfully demonstrating the ability to generate multiple network slices using a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) on a live commercial 5G Standalone (SA) network. In a press release, the two companies noted that the Samsung-supplied RIC is ‘a software-based component of the Open RAN architecture that optimises the radio resources of the RAN to improve the overall network quality’.
The field trial was reportedly conducted in Q4 of 2022. The press release continued: ‘KDDI and Samsung proved their capabilities of SLA assurance to generate multiple network slices that meet SLA requirements, guaranteeing specific performance parameters – such as low latency and high throughput – for each application. Samsung also proved the technical feasibility of multiple user equipment (UE)-based network slices with quality assurance using the RIC, which performs advanced control of RAN as defined by the O-RAN Alliance.’