At the MWC 2015 last March in Barcelona, Spain, CEO Hwang Chang-Gyu received noticeable attention for showing his vision of the future concerning 5G. Now to bring Korea a step closer to a 5G reality, CEO Hwang embarked on collaborating with Nokia, Ericsson as well as other global communications companies.

With Nokia, KT has a strong partner for the development of FTTA technology. Meanwhile, KT agreed to cooperate with Ericsson to develop technology to simultaneously transmit data between 5G base stations, based on broadband millimeter waves. In his visit to Europe, simultaneous transmission between 5G base stations, based on broadband millimeter waves was demonstrated for the first time ever. This technology will make possible the scene from the video shown in CEO Hwang’s keynote speech at the MWC 2015 where a hologram video conference call is being conducted while in a moving vehicle.

KT announced on May 31 that chairman Hwang Chang-Gyu visited Nokia (CEO Rajeev Suri) and Ericsson (CEO Hans Vestberg) as well as other global communications equipment manufacturers to discuss how the company could collaborate with the two communications giants, and agreed to join forces in 5G technology by setting up a test bed for 5G services.

This meeting owes its success to the MWC 2015, when on March 3rd CEO Hwang made his keynote speech “5G and Beyond, Accelerating the Future.” After which, Nokia and Ericsson agreeing with the speech directly invited CEO Hwang to their headquarters.

The KT president visited Nokia and Ericsson on May 28 and 29 and held meetings with the management of each company. At the meetings, CEO Hwang shared not just his visions for 5g but also introduced KT’s plans for the launching of 5G trial services at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games. Additionally, CEO Hwang spoke of the development of core technology for 5G as well as the progress made in cooperation for standardization and other future plans. Overall, meaningful time was spent throughout the meetings.

▶ Strengthening cooperation with Nokia concerning FTTA, mobile edge computing and 5G networks construction.

KT CEO Hwang Chang-Gyu visited the headquarters of Nokia in Helsinki, Finland on the 28th of May. The purpose of the visit was to speak about cooperative development for the construction and early commercialization of a next-gen 5G network.

In the meeting, CEO Hwang reached an agreement with representatives of Nokia to strengthen cooperation in virtualization-based Fiber to the Antenna (FTTA), a favored tech for 5G networks. FTTA is a connection method for next-gen 5G base stations in where through the integration of antennas and base stations, a 5G transmission network is constructed through the use of fiber to the home (FTTH).

FTTA is incorporated in software form and is derived from a virtualization based server. The software can be adjusted as deemed necessary in the event of the need to add new capabilities to base stations later on. If this technology is applied, it is expected that the time needed to construct a 5G transmission network would be significantly less than the time it took to build the LTE network.

In addition, KT and Nokia agreed to jointly develop Mobile Edge Computing technology for the purposes of ultra-low latency mobile 5G services. Mobile Edge Computing is where the content server is installed in the base station for the purpose of shortening that the delay time of server requests and receptions, ultimately providing an optimized seamless service to the customer. Previously, buffering as well as other service delays occurred from customers requesting large amounts of data in real-time. With the use of Mobile Edge Computing, these delays in services will be minimized.

Rajeev Suri, CEO of Nokia said, “We have expanded our continued partnership with KT in the area of 5G and together will play a leading role in making 5G a global technology.” He went on to say, “We will actively cooperate and support KT in the area of 5G.”

▶KT with Ericsson for the first time ever, demonstrates technology to simultaneously transmit data between 5G base stations, based on broadband millimeter waves.

KT CEO Hwang Chang-Gyu on the 29th of May, visited Ericsson headquarters located in Stockholm, Sweden to successfully demonstrate “5G Multi-point Transmission with Distributed MIMO” technology in a moving vehicle. This technology allows simultaneous transmission data between 5G base stations, based on broadband millimeter waves.

Broadband millimeter wave is being evaluated as an alternative to address the lack of frequency that exists in the low frequency band that is currently in use within mobile communication. However, due to the size of propagation loss in physical application, coverage is reduced and solving the issue of seamless interworking among numerous small cells was pointed out.

If KT and Ericsson put into application the transmission technology that was jointly demonstrated, the method will make it possible to drastically reduce blind spots, by connecting a large number of small cells without interruption, thereby helping gb-level wireless services like hologram video communications run smoothly while driving.

KT and Ericsson succeeded in delivering connection speeds of up to 2Gbps in a moving car in the demonstration, with plans to increase the speed to more than dozens of Gbps in the future.

Through this, KT has, for the purpose of quality improvement and high speed 5G transmission, not only gained core technology in interlocked transmission between base stations, but has also moved past the competition concerning the construction of next-gen 5G core technology.

In addition, KT signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Ericsson to develop and test Machine type communication (LTE-M) and IoT-related methods. They also discussed expanding new business opportunities within the business to business (B2B) and business to government (B2G) markets.

Hans Vestberg, CEO of Ericsson said, “We are expecting to lead the way in 5G technology alongside Korea’s world class mobile communications representative KT.” Additionally, he said, “We will actively cooperate with KT for the global standardization of 5G and also for the successful evolution 5G communication.”

▶ 5G test bed to be built at KT’s R&D center in Woomyeon-dong, Seoul……5G technology co-developed and validated.

In the pursuit of its technology goals and to enrich its partnerships with both Nokia and Ericsson, KT will set up a 5G test bed at its R&D center in Woomyeon-dong, Seoul.

Through this test bed KT is expecting to accelerate the joint development and validation of key technology regarding 5G. With Nokia, FTTA and Mobile Edge Computing and with Ericsson, 5G wireless access technology from various alternate 5G frequency bands as well as technology to operate Ultra Dense Network (UDN.)

KT CEO Hwang Chang-Gyu said, “With the cooperation of Nokia and Ericsson, world-renowned communications equipment manufacturers, KT will lead the development of core technology for the 5G era. As a corporation of people, we will be well-prepared to offer the world’s first 5G mobile service at the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games in 2018.”

▶ KT visits Finland’s start-up support agency to seek cooperation.

Prior to the meeting with Nokia, CEO Hwang Chang-Gyu visited high-ranking officials at “Finpro,” a Finish government agency that actively supports over 4,000 SMEs in entering the global market.

The visit was also to discuss the building of cooperation between Korea’s G-CCEI and Finpro. More specifically, to initiate exchange between startups of both countries as well as support for global market entry. Through this, the future growth engine start-ups of both countries will have the opportunity to grow.

At the meeting, Finpro asked for cooperation and active interest from CEO Hwang so as to foster start-ups from both Korea and Finland. Additionally, CEO Hwang was asked to make a speech at the global start-up conference “Slush,” which is led by Finland. CEO Hwang received global attention since making his speech regarding Korea’s hidden champions within the creative economy titled, “K-Champ” at the ITU Plenipptentiary Conference in October 2014.

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KT announced on May 31 that chairman Hwang Chang-gyu visited Nokia (CEO Rajeev Suri) May 28th and Ericsson (CEO Hans Vestberg) May 29th, as well as other global communications equipment manufacturers to discuss how the company could collaborate with the two communications giants, and agreed to join forces in 5G technology by setting up a test bed for 5G services.

At the meetings, CEO Hwang shared not just his visions for 5g but also introduced KT’s plans for the launching of 5G trial services at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games. Additionally, CEO Hwang spoke of the development of core technology for 5G as well as the progress made in cooperation for standardization and other future plans. Overall, meaningful time was spent throughout the meetings.

In Picture 1, KT CEO Hwang Chang-Gyu (first row, fourth from the left) on the 29th of May at Ericson headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, after holding meetings with the management of both Nokia and Ericsson.

In photo 2, KT CEO Hwang Chang-Gyu on the 29th of May, visiting Ericsson headquarters located in Stockholm, Sweden to successfully demonstrate “5G Multi-point Transmission with Distributed MIMO” technology in a moving vehicle.

In picture 3, KT CEO Hwang Chang-Gyu on the 29th of May, visiting Ericsson headquarters located in Stockholm, Sweden, wearing a VR device and remotely operating equipment through a network.

In Photo 4, KT CEO Hwang Chang-Gyu on the 29th of May, visiting Ericsson headquarters located in Stockholm, Sweden, speaking with key executives.