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| Visitors experience KT's omni-point view service using the firm's 5G devices at the cross-country skiing area of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, Feb. 11. The service allows viewers to catch up with athletes' location and performance in real time. / Yonhap |
By Jun Ji-hye
KT, an official partner of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, successfully provided the fifth-generation (5G) wireless network trial service during the event, with an assessment by market observers that the firm has taken a step forward in the global 5G competition.
It has become the first telecom company in the world to launch a 5G trial service among other global firms that have been engaged in the hard-fought competition to commercialize their 5G networks as soon as possible.
The nation's biggest fixed-line internet operator and the second-largest mobile carrier plans to take advantage of the trial service for the Winter Games as a springboard to commercially launch 5G services faster than any other companies worldwide.
In February last year, during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu announced his company's goal to commercialize its 5G network by 2019.
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| KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu speaks at the Mobile World Congress held at Barcelona, Feb. 27 last year, during which time he announced a goal of launching the commercial 5G service by 2019, faster than any other companies worldwide. / Courtesy of KT |
The remarks surprised industry leaders as, at the time, many expected 5G services to be commercialized around 2020.
The Korean firm made every effort to show the world what 5G services will bring to people during the Olympic Games.
One such move was the opening of a 5G exhibition hall at the Gangneung Olympic Park just ahead of the event.
During the Games, KT provided four 5G-driven visual technologies _ sync view, interactive time slice, 360-degree virtual reality live broadcasting and omni-point view.
The sync view allows audiences to watch 3D live performances from a bobsledder's viewpoint. The service comes with a combination of super-small wireless camera and telecom modules, sending quality video in real time over the 5G network.
The interactive time slice is used to send videos of short track speed skaters or figure skaters from multiple angles.
The 360-degree VR live feature, used for the ice hockey and snowboarding tournaments, provides realistic experiences of enjoying sports games at home, letting viewers watch the games in virtual reality by wearing a 5G-connected VR headset.
The omni-point view service is available for the cross-country skiing competition, allowing viewers to catch up with a certain athlete's location or performance, such as ranking, in real time.
The firm also showcased the 5G-connected autonomous bus during the event, equipped with dozens of sensors that enable the vehicle to detect locations of obstructions on the road on its own.
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| Mats Granryd, director general of the Global System for Mobile Communications Association, plays a virtual ice hockey game at KT's fifth-generation (5G) wireless network exhibition hall at Gangneung Olympic Park in Gangwon Province, Feb. 11, while KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu, fifth from right in back row, looks on. The company said it showcased various 5G technologies to global ICT leaders on the day and won high praise. / Courtesy of KT |
The 5G networks boast speeds up to 100 times faster than the current LTE networks and allow data transmission speeds 40 to 50 times faster than the current generation.
The key requirement for the 5G technology is it must back 1 million connected devices per square kilometer. Also the total download capacity for a single 5G mobile phone must be at least 20Gbps, according to a draft report published in February last year by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The Korean company has made consistent preparations to take the lead in the global 5G competition at a time when its two domestic competitors _ SK Telecom and LG Uplus _ as well as U.S.-based Verizon and AT&T have been going full throttle to provide their 5G services at the earliest possible date.
In November 2016, KT opened a webpage in which it disclosed its entire 5G standards to be used in its trial service at PyeongChang. The move was aimed at letting global telecom firms and equipment manufacturers utilize such standards, which will help the Korean company expand them.
Industry watchers said, thanks to KT's successful trial service during the Olympic Games, there is a greater possibility for the firm's 5G standards to be reflected in the 5G New Radio (NR) standardization to be finalized by the ITU. The standalone (SA) version is due for completion in June as part of the 3GPP Release 15.
Once KT's 5G standards are adopted as global standardization, the company will gain an opportunity to expand its 5G services to global markets and cooperating with more global firms.
"Until the era of the fourth-generation wireless network, Korea tended to follow global trends, but in the era of 5G networks, we are ahead as a first mover," said a KT official. "This represents much for the nation's competitive power in the ICT industry."
Another KT official explained conditions for the commercialization of 5G would include the construction of a wireless network infrastructure and the release of mobile phones that can work on 5G.
He noted that who will unveil a 5G mobile phone and begin the service first will be key, adding people can say the 5G era has begun when flat-rate payment systems for 5G mobile services are created, and customers actually use them.
"The range of areas in which customers can use 5G services would be another important factor," he said.
KT also leads EV-related business
The 5G technology is not the only one, to which KT has devoted its efforts.
The company is also playing a leading role in the electric vehicle (EV) related business, contributing to the government's environmentally friendly moves.
Last week, the firm said it is currently testing a new business model, called electric vehicle-demand response (EV-DR), which will enable factories or buildings to utilize electric cars as supplementary power supplies to cope with blackouts and other emergency situations.
For a demonstration, the firm established a vehicle-to-grid testbed at its building in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, and is testing technology that enables plug-in EVs to communicate with the power grid to offer demand response services by, for example, returning electricity to the grid.
The firm said the technology was cited as one of the core, new energy services by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in January.
Some factories and buildings here were forced to suspend their operations several times this winter to reduce power consumption due to the extreme cold wave hitting the nation, the firm said.
It explained that in this case, electric cars can be used as supplementary batteries by discharging their electricity and giving it to factories or buildings. This technology can help minimize losses and confusion that would have been caused by suspension of operation.
Kim Young-myoung, head of KT's smart energy business unit, noted if 100,000 electric cars participate in the EV-DR market for an hour with 5 kilowatts at the same time, it will amount to the electricity created by one power plant.
He stressed that the firm's new business model can significantly contribute to stabilizing the nation's management of electrical power demand.
The firm said it plans to apply the EV-DR model to all of its electric cars.
It replaced 1,500 office cars with EVs last year and plans to replace an additional 10,000 cars soon.
Through keen cooperation with small- and medium-sized enterprises, the company is also seeking to expand the new model to EVs used by citizens.
The core technology of the firm's EV-DR model is the energy management platform, KT-MEG, it said. The company noted its artificial intelligence (AI) data analysis engine, e-Brain, monitors situations of the use of electricity around the clock and manages the timing of EV's electrical discharge.
Meanwhile, KT also topped the EV charging business, defeating four local competitors licensed by the government to provide charging stations, according to the Ministry of Environment.
The government has established 8,457 chargers for electric cars in parking lots at apartments and public facilities nationwide. Among them, KT installed 3,656 or 43 percent of the total.
Four other competitors _ Posco ICT, GNTEL, Korea Electric Vehicle Charge Service and EVERON _ set up 1,621, 1,273, 1,240 and 667 charging facilities, respectively.
Officials from the ministry said the figures were tallied based on government subsidies offered to the five charger providers at the end of December, noting that it has provided the firms with 300 million won ($280,000) to 400 million won in subsidies per charger. KT received about 13 billion won.
The ministry plans to reflect the figures and the results of its ongoing field inspections into the chargers, during which time officials check the quality of the charging facilities and their accessibility, in its evaluation to select EV charger providers for this year.
Thanks to being placed at the top position, KT seems highly likely to be selected again.
