SKT races to beat KT to punch in 5G

SK Telecom engineers test 5G base stations near the company’s network testing site in downtown Seoul, Sunday. / Courtesy of SK Telecom

By Jun Ji-hye

SK Telecom (SKT), the country’s top mobile carrier, is making all-out efforts to launch its fifth-generation (5G) wireless network service as soon as possible.

Competition in the Korean wireless market is fierce, with SKT vying to be the first with a 5G service ahead of long-time rivals KT and LG Uplus. No. 2 carrier KT is aiming to commercialize its 5G network by 2019, announcing its goal to beat other companies worldwide.

SKT said Sunday that a 200-member task force was preparing to launch its 5G service as soon as possible.

The task force is led by Suh Sung-won, head of the mobile network operation (MNO) division and comprised of staff from four major divisions ― MNO, media, internet of things (IoT) /data and service platforms.

Others include staff from the company’s ICT infrastructure institute.

“SK Telecom has put a considerable amount of manpower related to autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence (AI) and the IoT into the task force to develop preemptively next-generation services that will provide our customers with the greatest convenience,” the company said in a release.

The company said the goals of its task force also included developing business models.

“We will focus on developing equipment working on global 5G standards and the building of a wireless network infrastructure,” the company said. “We will also enhance technical cooperation with co-operative companies.”

The company noted that it had already sent requests for proposals (RFP) to companies, dedicated to developing commercial equipment, so that it could introduce communications equipment working on the global 5G New Radio (NR) standardization as soon as possible.

“We will take the lead developing a 5G service through constant innovation so Korea can secure leadership in the global market,” Suh said.

The 5G network boasts speeds up to 100 times faster than current LTE networks and allows data transmission speeds 40 to 50 times faster than now.

The key requirement for 5G technology is that it must back 1 million connected devices per square kilometer. Also, the download capacity for a single 5G mobile phone must be at least 20Gbps, according to an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) draft report published in February.