[Aju News DB ]
South Korea's top mobile carrier SK Telecom said Wednesday it is working with major telecom network and equipment companies to arrange global standards for the ultrafast 5G network that will enable new technologies such as virtual reality broadcasts, hologram
calls and self-driving cars.
The company said 15 companies would pull together for a 5G cooperation body including AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Huawei, Intel, Qualcomm, LG Electronics and SK Telecom.
The body would discuss international standards for 5G commercial services and interoperability with 4G networks. Its direction will be reflected through the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a collaboration between groups of telecom. 3GPP unites seven telecom standard development organizations (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC).
SK Telecom promised to lead work on establishing the environment for 5G services and technologies.
A 5G network, which is set to provide up to a million connections per square kilometer, is crucial in creating "Smart Cities". It's expected to arrive in 2020 with Ovum, a London-based analyst, predicting there will be 24 million 5G users by 2021.
The 5G network is likely to be up to 100 times faster than the maximum possible on 4G networks and its faster connectivity will lead to services such as hologram calls and self-driving cars, remote-control vehicles and even remote control surgery. On phones, it will be used to deliver VR entertainment.
There’s no defined standard as yet, but major players such as Samsung Electronics have joined forces to develop technologies. Tests by Vodafone and Huawei have already hit speeds of up to 20Gbps.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
