SK Telecom today announced that the company published a white paper on 5G to suggest new direction for technological evolution to 5G, the next generation mobile communications network.
SK Telecom’s white paper on 5G is now available to the public at 5G Global Summit which is an international 5G conference held on October 20 and 21 during the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan.
Expecting the era of 5G to arrive in 2020, the white paper outlines analysis, direction and methodologies of 5G network explaining vision, core technologies, services, requirements and spectrum.
Based on its multi-dimensional analysis on 5G network from both user’s and operator’s perspectives, in particular, SK Telecom suggested User Experience, Connectivity, Intelligence, Efficiency and Reliability as 5 Great Values to pursue in the next generation telecommunications technology.
In the paper, SK Telecom anticipates the 5G system architecture to consist of three layers that are service, platform and infrastructure and mapped major technology categories and enabling technologies for each layer. As 5G network-based services, the paper proposes hologram, immersive multimedia*, hyper-connected IoT** among others.
* Immersive multimedia service: deliver realistic multimedia content using a variety technologies including AR(Augmented Reality), VR(Virtual Reality) and hologram.
** Hyper-connected IoT service: connect all objects including diverse sensors, smart devices and cars based on large-volume wireless network to bring convenience and innovation to people’s daily lives.
SK Telecom as a chair company of 5G Forum, an industry-academia R&D partnership for 5G in Korea, expects the white paper becomes a basis for diverse future discussions on 5G development including standardization.
Meanwhile, SK Telecom plans to push ahead with further cooperation with world-class telecommunication equipment manufacturers for development of the 5G telecommunications technology. Recently, the company signed a MOU with Samsung Electronics on October 20 for joint research and development of 5G technologies, and millimeter wave mobile communications technology for 5G*** is being demonstrated in World IT Show 2014.
*** Millimeter wave mobile communications technology for 5G: a technology to use ultra-high frequency bands over 30GHz for telecommunications. The technology, combined with Massive MIMO, enables delivery of giga-bit level data rate.
Earlier, SK Telecom also teamed up with Nokia and Ericsson last June and July respectively for research and development of 5G mobile communications technology and, under such initiative, FDD-TDD aggregation technology and giga-bit data speeds using ultra-wideband transmission technology were demonstrated.
Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center at SK Telecom, said, “SK Telecom is pleased to publish a white paper on 5G mobile communications technology and thereby suggest the directions for future discussions and research. The company will continue to take the lead in a range of R&D activities for the 5G technology and become the industry leader in the global market as well as in Korea.”
SK Telecom’s white paper on 5G technology is now available for download on the company’s website.
ators’ current and future needs.
IPRAN is widely used in mobile network backhaul to bear 2G/3G/LTE and other mobile services, using the IP/MPLS (internet protocol/multi-protocol label switching). After the access layer introduces layer 3, IGP/BGP/LDP/TE/PW/BFD configuration takes place. An IPRAN local access network often has thousands of devices, so personnel managing the network must be highly qualified because of the complex network O&M.
In the LTE era, eNB (evolved Node B) coverage is much less than earlier generation base stations, requiring more base stations. It is estimated that 2-3 more eNBs are required than existing base stations, and this also increases the number of backhaul devices. This expansion brings its own network design, service configuration, and O&M problems and pressures.
ZTE’s ElasticNet SDN IPRAN solution virtualises massive remote access-layer equipment into the boards of convergence-layer equipment, and convergence/access layer equipment forms a large virtual cluster system, simplifying the IPRAN equipment and improving automatic network deployment, O&M and network service capability.
The IPRAN solution is based on unified standard SDN northbound and southbound interfaces to help ensure an open network capability and to create application value to meet the requirements of new LTE service deployment and rapid innovation.
Fan Chengfa, chief engineer of ZTE’s Bearer Network product line, said: "With the growing popularity of mobile Internet, mobile bearer networks are taking on an increasingly important role, and meanwhile higher labour costs are creating more pressure for efficient network operation. Applying SDN to the IPRAN combines software-based automatic management and application-on-demand to help operators further simplify O&M and enrich service capabilities so as to provide customers with better service.”
The ZTE ElasticNet SDN IPRAN uses an external stand-alone controller to quickly respond to and follow the development of SDN technology. It uses the standard Openflow protocol and is compatible with other vendors for cross-vendor service deployment, complying with SDN concepts and development trends.