Samsung Electronics was elected as an official member of the Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) for the O-RAN open source project, the O-RAN Software Community’s main decision-making body, at a recent online meeting (SC). Samsung is scheduled to play a crucial role in the O-RAN open source project’s TOC decision-making for the course of a period that begins in April and ends in 2023.
Samsung has been growing its influence in the Open RAN sector through its membership in the O-RAN Alliance, an area that is currently in the spotlight due to its potential to be the next generation of radio access network (RAN) technology. The business has been working on open source code for the RAN Intelligent Controller for the past two years (RIC).
Samsung, together with 11 other corporations, has been elected as an official member of the TOC, the O-RAN SC’s top voting body, as a result of its pioneering work. Following the membership offer, JinGuk Jeong, Vice President and Head of Advanced Solutions Team at Samsung Researchh1’s Advanced Communications Research Center, has commenced his term as the company’s representative to the TOC.
Six global telecommunications operators — AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, NTT Docomo, and TIM — and six telecommunications equipment and component providers — Samsung Electronics, Ericsson, Nokia, Windriver, Radisys, and Viavi — make up the O-RAN SC TOC, which has twelve seats.
O-RAN SC is sponsored by the O-RAN Alliance, which publishes specifications and develops and distributes open source software that complies with those specifications. Samsung will participate in the final approval of the bi-annual open source code release, the creation of a development roadmap, and the decisions necessary to assure alignment with the O-RAN Alliance as a member of the TOC.
Samsung wants to continue enhancing its leading research in Network AI (Artificial Intelligence) / ML (Machine Learning) based on O-RAN technology as it grows its influence in other relevant industries, thanks to the open source leadership secured with this TOC membership.