SK Telecom Embarks on Global Ultra-Collaboration, Commercializes '5G MEC' with 9 Partners

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Cho] SK Telecom is embarking on a "super (超) collaboration" to globally commercialize the core technology of the 5G era, '5G MEC (Mobile Edge Computing)'.

According to SK Telecom on the 1st, at the GSMA Congress held in London on the 24th (local time), nine global telecom companies including SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, EE, KDDI, Orange, Telef?nica, Telecom Italia, China Unicom, Singtel, and NTT Docomo launched the 'Telecom Edge Cloud TF' aiming for the commercialization of '5G MEC'.

These telecom companies agreed to launch the 'Telecom Edge Cloud TF' to accelerate the commercialization and enhance the universality of the core technology '5G MEC', which improves the performance of ultra-low latency services such as ▲cloud gaming ▲smart factories ▲autonomous driving.

The 'Telecom Edge Cloud TF' aims for the global commercialization of '5G MEC' technology through mutual interconnection among the 'edge clouds' separately built by each telecom company. To this end, participating companies plan to conduct demonstration tests for interconnection and sharing of edge cloud technologies and services owned by each company.

As the only telecom company possessing 5G-based edge cloud core technology, SK Telecom plans to lead the global commercialization of '5G MEC' technology by strengthening cooperation with global telecom companies.

Global cooperation is essential to increase the universality of '5G MEC' technology and services and to rapidly develop the technology ecosystem. For example, if interconnection of technology and services between telecom companies is impossible, service developers must separately develop the same service tailored to each telecom company’s '5G MEC' system.

Since September last year, SK Telecom has been collaborating with GSMA and major GSMA members such as Deutsche Telekom and Telef?nica to form the 'Operator Platform TF' to concretize models and solutions for interconnecting '5G MEC' technologies and services and to create standards.

Meanwhile, in January, SK Telecom launched the 'Global MEC TF' together with five telecom companies belonging to the Asia-Pacific telecom alliance 'Bridge Alliance'?Singtel, Globe, Taiwan Mobile, HKT, and PCCW Global?to strive for the commercialization of 5G MEC.

Lee Kang-won, Head of SK Telecom Cloud Labs, said, “SK Telecom has decided to expand cooperation with global partners for the commercialization of 5G MEC technology,” adding, “We will continue to lead the development of the 5G MEC technology ecosystem.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.