Nokia And SK Telecom Cement 5G Research Partnership

Nokia and South Korean mobile operator SK Telecom are to expand their existing 5G partnership by jointly developing and testing gigabit network technology that will underpin the next generation of mobile services.

The two firms joined forces in June to work on software-based and cloud network management systems, resulting in the creation of Cloud vRAN, the world’s first base station virtualisation technology, which it is intended will be used in the rollout of 5G.

Now their attention has turned towards ‘cmWave / mmWave’, which uses spectrum in the 6GHz band or higher and is capable of gigabit transmissions. It is one standard being proposed by the third generation partnership project (3GPP) as a core 5G technology.

Nokia 5G effort

A test bed will be built at SK Telecom’s R&D centre in Bundang, South Korea and the companies hope to launch 5G in 2018 and commercialise it by 2020.

“By joining hands with Nokia, we expect to accelerate our speeds toward the development of core 5G technologies,” said Choi Jin-sung, Head of SK Telecom’s corporate R&D centre. “Envisioning an era where all things and people are organically connected, SK Telecom will continue to bring innovative changes to the mobile network structure.”

“The future of mobile telecommunications network will not only connect people, but things as well. In the end, 5G will further extend human potential through advanced telecommunications technologies,” said Hossien Moiin, head of technology and innovation at Nokia. “Together with SK Telecom, Nokia will make efforts to allow diverse futuristic services to be efficiently provided through 5G technologies.”

There are a number of research projects around the world working on the development of 5G, including the 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) at the University of Surrey. Mobile Industry body the GSMA expects 5G networks to offer 1Gbps speeds and low latency, while others say the defining feature of the next generation of networks will be their capacity.

Ofcom recently launched a consultation into the use of 6GHz and other ultra-high frequencies that could support 5G, which it believes will be available in the UK in 2020.

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