Samsung is set to play a major part in 5G deployment efforts in the United States following a number of lucrative deals it made with several wireless carriers in the country. The company so far confirmed it will be supporting the initial 5G push of both Verizon and Sprint, with the former already awarding it a supply contract for its upcoming fixed wireless access service in January. Last month, Verizon also selected Samsung as a 4G LTE Open RAN provider meant to assist the largest stateside wireless carrier in its next 4G LTE initiative. The South Korean tech giant is also involved in Sprint’s early 5G buildout plans, together with Ericsson and Nokia, the Overland Park, Kansas-based telecom giant revealed at this year’s Mobile World Congress.
The next generation of wireless connectivity hence seems to be beneficial to Samsung’s infrastructural ambitions in the U.S. where it’s still not among the most relevant players in terms of its overall physical footprint. The Seoul-based original equipment manufacturer is now looking to change that by leveraging its leadership in 5G, with many industry watchers estimating its chances of doing so are relatively high. Stefan Pongratz of Dell’Oro Group believes Samsung’s ambitions to increase the value of its $1.8 billion network business five-fold by 2022 is largely dependent on its success in the U.S. market where it’s presently gaining momentum due to its sub-6GHz Massive MIMO offerings and millimeter-wave technologies, both of which are expected to be crucial components of the 5G revolution, FierceWireless reports. Samsung is also likely to steal additional market share from Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE that have been effectively blocked from doing business in the country as Washington’s intelligence agencies recently raised spying concerns surround their equipment due to their close ties to Beijing.
Large-scale 5G deployment is expected to start in early 2019, with the technology being pioneered by the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Australia, and China. Stateside network operators are all targeting nationwide coverage by 2020, though it remains to be seen whether their fully commercialized networks end up relying on Samsung-made equipment as much as their experimental configurations do.