Samsung and TELUS just made Canadian telecommunications history by deploying the country's first commercial AI-powered Radio Access Network Intelligent Controller. This breakthrough marks a pivotal shift toward fully automated, software-based networks that can optimize themselves in real-time, setting the stage for how telecom infrastructure will evolve globally.
Samsung and TELUS just rewrote the playbook for Canadian telecommunications. The companies announced they're deploying the country's first commercial Radio Access Network Intelligent Controller (RIC), a software brain that uses AI to automatically optimize network performance across TELUS's wireless infrastructure.
This isn't just another tech partnership - it's the next evolution of how networks think and adapt. The RIC acts like an intelligent nervous system for telecommunications, using AI algorithms to predict traffic patterns, identify potential issues before they impact users, and automatically adjust network resources to maintain optimal performance. "We are excited to broaden our collaboration with Samsung to transform our network and enhance the customer experience using AI," Bernard Bureau, Vice President of Wireless Strategy & Services at TELUS, told Samsung's press release.
The timing couldn't be more strategic. This deployment represents the next phase of an ambitious collaboration that began with TELUS and Samsung's announcement of Canada's first commercial virtualized and O-RAN network in February 2024. Where that initial rollout laid the foundation, this RIC implementation adds the intelligence layer that makes networks truly autonomous.
Samsung is betting big on what they call "AI-RAN" - networks that don't just carry data but actively think about how to do it better. "AI is ushering in a new era of possibilities and the right foundation is critical," Angelo Jeongho Park, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics, explained in the announcement. "We believe vRAN is the best way forward on the path to AI-RAN, built on an end-to-end software-based architecture that provides the optimal foundation for AI."
The technical capabilities are impressive. Samsung's RIC solution includes the KPI Anomaly Detector (KAD) and RAN Anomaly Insight (RAI) to spot network issues before they cascade into service problems. The Energy Saving Manager (ESM) performs dynamic traffic prediction and automatically orchestrates energy-saving features, while the Load Balancing Manager (LBM) optimizes resource utilization in real-time.
