Spark has partnered with Samsung to build its 5G network in New Zealand this year, in what appears to be the last nail in the coffin for Huawei’s prospects to do the same.
The trade agreement, announced yesterday, is the culmination of a sustained partnership between New Zealand’s largest mobile operator and the world’s largest smartphone supplier by market share.
Spark and Samsung have been working on network innovation since last year, starting with 5G trials across the country.
Last November, the government rejected Spark’s proposal to launch a similar project with Huawei, citing significant national security risks linked to the collaboration with the Chinese supplier.
The agreement between Spark and Samsung comes a month after the head of the government’s Office of Communications Security (GCSB), Andrew Hampton, said that no telecommunications provider had been banned by the government.
The Telecommunications Act (TICSA) gives the agency regulatory oversight to protect New Zealand’s telecommunications infrastructure.
The GCSB carries out its assessment on the basis of the information provided in the notifications from mobile operators.
Between 2018 and 2019, the GCSB received 158 network change notifications, including the first such notification regarding the deployment of 5G.
Samsung says that as part of the trade deal, it will provide Spark with its latest 5G New Radio (NR) solutions, including massive MIMO radios.
The Massive MIMO solution has been deployed by the three mobile operators in South Korea and will go on sale in Japan this month, according to Samsung.
“We are delighted to have Samsung as a 5G provider for our mobile services,” said Rajesh Singh, managing director of value management at Spark.
“One of the main reasons we chose Samsung was their 5G NR solutions which offer improved network capacity, high quality connections and cutting edge technology.”
Samsung claims to be one of the first companies to offer end-to-end 5G solutions, from chipset, radio and core to cloud platform, for medium frequencies (2.5 GHz / 3.5 GHz) ) and mmWave (28 GHz / 39 GHz).
“We are delighted to begin this collaboration with Spark, which is a big step in bringing the power of 5G to New Zealand,” said WooJune Kim, executive vice president and director of global sales and marketing for Samsung.
“We look forward to helping Spark unlock the future of mobile connectivity and are ready to support the new level of 5G experiences they will deliver to their customers with our next generation network solution.”
Spark is working with Samsung on network innovation, starting with 5G testing in 2019.
These trials used Samsung’s 5G end-to-end solutions to test and verify the potential of next-generation network technology at Spark Lab.