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The logos of Samsung and SaskTel

Samsung Electronics has signed a base station equipment supply contract with a Canadian telecommunications business.

Samsung is making aggressive inroads to fill the gap left behind since China’s Huawei was nudged out by US sanctions. To date, Huawei has been one of the leading companies in the global communications equipment market.

Samsung Electronics announced Tuesday that it would be the sole supplier of 5G and LTE (4G) base stations to the Canadian telecom SaskTel. The equipment to be supplied by Samsung includes 5G and 4G base stations with various frequency bands, massive MIMO base stations, and virtualization core software.

The 5G virtualization core in particular is being supplied overseas by Samsung Electronics for the first time. The equipment allows for simultaneous processing of 5G and 4G data traffic.

Use of the equipment will “allow more efficient management of network resources,” Samsung Electronics explained.

The contract reads strongly as Samsung’s move to fill the gap left by Huawei. Formerly ranked first globally among communications equipment companies, Huawei has been struggling to proceed with projects in major countries after being slapped with sanctions by the US amid its trade conflict with China.

SaskTel, the company now joining forces with Samsung Electronics, is one of the businesses that had previously been using Huawei equipment.

The supply contract is the third order Samsung Electronics has received from Canada since its first in 2019. The company did not disclose the scale of the contract or other details.

Choi Hyoung-jin is a principal engineer at the Samsung Research next-generation communications research center. (provided by Samsung Electronics)

Meanwhile, Choi Hyoung-jin, a principal engineer at the Samsung Research next-generation communications research center, was selected chair of the “6G Vision Group” at a recent International Telecommunication Union – Radiocommunication (ITU-R) assembly.

The 6G Vision Group was established at a recent standardization assembly to define 6G performance capabilities and demands and establish a roadmap for standardization and commercialization.

By Song Chae Kyung-hwa, staff reporter

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