KT, NTT team up for tech development

Lee Dong-myeon, right in the front row, head of KT’s technology center, poses with NTT DoCoMo Chief Technology Officer Katayama Yasuyoshi, after the two firms agreed to expand their partnership for development of network virtualization technologies in Tokyo, Japan, Thursday. / Courtesy of KT

By Kim Yoo-chul

KT Corp. said Thursday that it has teamed up with NTT DoCoMo, the biggest telecommunications firm in Japan, to develop the next-generation wireless technologies.

The announcement comes after the company’s new CEO Hwang Chang-gyu asked executives to find solutions to recover its leadership in the telecom sector. Hwang is reviewing all of its business projects from a “zero base” and has named officials who have experiences in telecom-related fields to critical posts.

The two firms will collaborate in developing technologies using network virtualization (NV), which creates logical segments in an existing network. Simply put, it’s similar to partitioning a hard drive.

Because the demand for wireless data is strong amid the releases of smartphones and tablets, KT said its alliance with DoCoMo will help it offer creative values and improved service to customers.

Under the agreement, the two companies will develop software defined network (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV), hot issues in the telecom industry at the moment.

“Under the new leadership, KT is expanding its profile in telecom-related segments with international carriers. As KT is the leader in the local telecom industry, we will be consistent in putting resources on developing advanced telecom technologies,” said KT spokesman Jeong Seung-hyuk.

According to KT, SDN uses canned processes to provision the network, for example, instead of building a network tap using an appliance. Users should be able to program the network when they want to build a tap.

While NV and NFV add virtual tunnels and functions to the physical network, SDN changes the physical network. Therefore, it is really a new externally driven means to provision and manage the network, according to the statement.

Jeong said the collaboration is smoothly under way at its tech center in Korea.

“Working-level discussions are set to share patents and know-how over SDN applications.”

The National Pension Service is KT’s biggest shareholder with 8.65 percent, followed by NTT DoCoMo with 5.46 percent and Mirae Asset with 4.99 percent, while the portion of foreign holdings is some 44 percent, according to the company.