First Multi-Vendor 5G FWA Trial in Europe Announced

Orange, Samsung and Cisco announced collaboration on a 5G millimeter wave trial set to begin in the second half of 2018, across multiple homes in Romania. It marks Orange as the first operator to conduct a multi-vendor 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) customer trial in Europe.

The trial will be set up as a multi-vendor environment for a month-long period, in Romania. The companies will demonstrate how 5G can complement existing fiber deployments to deliver high-quality, high-speed bandwidth services.

Samsung and Cisco are working together to supply Orange with an end-to-end solution to deliver a gigabit-powered experience to trial customers. Samsung will provide commercial 5G home routers, 5G Radio Access Units comprised of a compact radio base station and virtualized RAN elements, as well as 5G radio frequency planning services.

Cisco will supply its Ultra Gateway Platform, delivering a 5G virtual packet core on top of NFV Infrastructure. The mobile gateway will be deployed with Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS) for enhanced throughput and flexibility.

Since 2017, Samsung and Cisco have conducted a series of comprehensive network vendor interoperability tests that demonstrated seamless interworking between the virtualized core network, virtualized radio network and CPE.