SK Telecom 5G Base Station Technology Becomes National Standard...Lowering Market Barriers for SMEs

[Asia Economy Reporter Joeslgina] SK Telecom's 5G base station technology has become the domestic standard. With the standardization of base station equipment and solutions that varied by manufacturer, it is expected that the market entry barriers for small and medium-sized enterprises and startups will be lowered, and the ecosystem will be revitalized.

On the 17th, SK Telecom announced that the open 5G base station standard proposal jointly suggested with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) has been confirmed as a standard by the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA).

This standard concerns the wired network 'Fronthaul' specification that connects the antenna device (RU, Radio Unit) and the distributed base station equipment (DU, Distributed Unit), which are components of the 5G base station (RAN, Radio Access Network).

Previously, the Fronthaul specifications differed by major telecommunications equipment manufacturers, so base station equipment and solutions were operated mainly by some manufacturers. However, with the establishment of this open standard specification, it is evaluated that any small equipment manufacturer can easily participate in developing related equipment. SK Telecom expects this standardization to contribute to revitalizing the base station equipment industry ecosystem.

Especially in 5G networks, which require dense deployment, the importance of Fronthaul is further emphasized. It is anticipated that with this standardization, participation from new manufacturers will expand, and the speed of network construction will accelerate.

Since December 2018, SK Telecom, together with ETRI, proposed the domestic Fronthaul specification based on the global 5G carrier alliance O-RAN standard to TTA for the first time in Korea, and after consultations with other carriers to expand the 5G ecosystem, the standard was established. The company has been participating as a member of the O-RAN board since June 2018.

In addition, in March, SK Telecom secured Fronthaul interworking technology based on the newly established standard together with domestic repeater company ‘Sollid’ and global measurement equipment company ‘Keysight’. They also successfully demonstrated transmission and reception between the low-power antenna devices developed by Sollid for the 3.5GHz and 28GHz bands and the distributed base station equipment.

Jongkwan Park, head of SK Telecom’s 5GX Technology Group, emphasized, “With this standard establishment, the market entry barriers for small and medium-sized enterprises and startups have been greatly lowered,” and added, “We will spare no effort to support domestic equipment companies so that they can actively enter overseas markets using the domestic market as a foothold.”

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