2017-12-22

KT (CEO Hwang Chang-Gyu, www.kt.com) attended the 78th Plenary meeting of the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project, an international collaboration for the standardization of mobile communications) from December 18th to 21st in Lisbon, Portugal. As announced on December 21st, a total of 30 global companies, including KT, gave birth to the first 5G standards.

With the new 5G 'Non-Standalone' (NSA) standard, it will be possible to use the existing LTE networks to achieve 5G and LTE interworking. A lot of telecom operators who call for an early commercialization of 5G joined the meeting. In particular, KT from Korea, Verizon, AT&T and Sprint from the United States, BT and Vodafone from Great Britain, China Mobile from China, NTT DoCoMo from Japan, Deutsche Telekom from Germany, Telecom Italia from Italy, Orange from France and many other telecommunications companies representing their countries took part in the discussions.

The 3GPP originally planned for the development of these standards to be completed in June 2018. But in March 2017, during the 3GPP 75th Plenary meeting, many global telecom operators, including KT, requested to speed up the standardization process. The 5G NSA standard could, therefore, be fully developed in 2017. With the creation of these standards, major telecom companies including KT took one step closer to the commercialization of 5G, expected in 2019.

The NSA-based 5G standard, which has been adopted as the 5G standard by the 3GPP, has already been developed in the Pyeongchang 5G SIG, which is to be introduced at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. KT worked in cooperation with global industry players to establish the specifications of the Pyeongchang 5G SIG, and demonstrated its 5G know-how with the construction of a 5G test network between Gwanghwamun and Pyeongchang as well as onsite testing.

As a matter of fact, with the production of the world’s first NSA network structure in the Pyeongchang 5G SIG, KT has contributed to the establishment of the standards of the 3GPP 5G structure. KT has actively participated in the standardization of the 3GPP 5G through the submission of over a hundred independent technical contributions and hundreds of joint contributions.

In particular, in the 3GPP workgroup on wireless technologies which was set up in April 2017, KT suggested new methods to efficiently build 5G wireless data transmission technologies such as Radio Beam Recovery, Wireless Data Control Technology, as well as 5G network structures such as Non-Standalone Network Structure and Base Station Separation Structure. These technologies were integrated into the 3GPP 5G final standards at the 3GPP 78th Plenary Session on Wireless Networks.

"We are proud to have completed the 3GPP 5G standardization early along with other global companies despite the very challenging schedule," said Jeon Hong-Beom, director of Infrastructure Research at KT. "We will use our experience in building and operating the world's best telecommunication infrastructure and services, to prepare 5G services and meet the highest standards of the fourth industrial revolution."

※ More Information: KT Public Relations Department Kim Jeong-Jun (02-730-0610)

※ Picture explanation

KT announced on December 21st that the first 5G standards have been developed by KT anfrom from fromd 26 other global members of the 78th 3GPP Plenary Session, held in Lisbon, Portugal from 2017 December 18th to 21st.

On December 21st, at the 3GPP Plenary Session in Lisbon, participants from various countries are discussing the 5G NSA standards.

Hwang Jung Woo, senior researcher at the KT Institute of Convergence Technology, speaks about 5G standard technologies at the 3GPP Plenary Session in Lisbon, on December 21st.

On December 21st, at the 3GPP Plenary Session in Lisbon, participants are celebrating the announcement of the completion of the 5G NSA standards.