Samsung completed a live commercial call on a “[tier-one] US operator’s live network” using its virtualized radio access network (vRAN) platform running Intel’s Xeon 6 system-on-chip (SoC) processor series, building on past work with the chip giant and perhaps ongoing work with that unnamed operator.

The test used Samsung’s cloud-native vRAN running the Intel chips on a single commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) server from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and a cloud platform from Wind River.

It showed the ability for a consolidated platform to support commercial services that have traditionally needed multiple servers and management systems.

“This breakthrough represents a major leap forward in network virtualization and efficiency,” June Moon, EVP and head of research and development for Samsung’s networks business, explained in a statement.

“It confirms the real-world readiness of this latest technology under live network conditions, demonstrating that single-server vRAN deployments can meet the stringent performance and reliability standards required by leading carriers.”

The move toward vRAN is about operators looking for deployment flexibility and are designed to allow for easier control and management of RAN architectures by eliminating hardware dependencies. Samsung has claimed vRAN can reduce total cost of ownership by 13 percent and opex by 25 percent over the duration of a five-year period compared to a distributed RAN framework.

The latest test built on Samsung’s long-standing work with Intel, including a successful lab-based trial conducted in early 2024. The chip giant launched its Xeon 6 platform in early 2025, with a specific focus on data center and networking systems.

Nokia last year moved to use that platform to power 5G network applications. The deal specifically called for the RAN vendor to use the Xeon 6780E product to support Nokia’s energy efficient-focused NFV infrastructure (NFVI) 5.0 and core network applications.

Wind River was also an early Xeon 6 supporter, echoing what has been the vendor’s long-time support of cloud-native telecom-focused virtualization efforts. Wind River’s telecom-focused cloud-native platform also recently garnered accolades from ABI Research, which ranked the vendor as providing the most compelling platform in the market, and has been selected by other operators to power open RAN efforts.

While the tier-one operator was not named, Samsung has had long-standing relationships with a number of potential names depending on “tier” expectations, this includes Verizon, Comcast, and UScellular, the last of which was recently acquired by T-Mobile US. Samsung was also part of EchoStar’s Dish Wireless 5G-based vRAN program, which is now in the process of being disassembled.

Samsung’s work with Verizon is the most extensive, with its 5G-related work dating back nearly a decade. That work also includes a vRAN-specific relationship with Verizon going back to early this decade, which has coincidentally included support from Intel and Wind River, and has run up to Verizon’s recent launch of its 6G Innovation Forum.