Faster Than Ever... SKT-Samsung Achieve World's First '5G SA Option 4' Technology Verification

'5G Standalone Mode (SA) Option 4' Technology Verification Completed
Utilization in Various Industries Such as UAM and Remote Robots

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-sun] SK Telecom and Samsung Electronics announced on the 24th that they will showcase the world's first case of verifying '5G Option 4 technology' in a 5th generation (5G) Stand Alone (SA) commercial network equipment environment at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022, the global mobile communications exhibition opening in Barcelona, Spain.

5G Stand Alone mode is a technology that can provide a network using only 5G equipment. '5G Option 4' is an evolved method from the current Stand Alone technology 'Option 2,' which uses only core and base station equipment, characterized by combining 5G and 4G LTE mobile communication technologies to increase maximum speed.

5G Option 2 has limitations in speed and quality compared to the Non-Stand Alone (NSA) technology used by many carriers, as it cannot utilize the LTE frequencies already secured.

The '5G Option 4' technology unveiled by SKT and Samsung Electronics this time is significant in that it is the world's first research verified not only in laboratories but also in commercial networks, showing no speed degradation compared to NSA and allowing the use of 5G Stand Alone or combined with LTE according to service or situation, thus raising the technical level of Stand Alone (SA) mode by one step.

SKT and Samsung Electronics recently achieved communication speeds equivalent to NSA while verifying specialized functions of Stand Alone (SA) mode using '5G Option 4' at SKT's Bundang research center. Additionally, they confirmed speeds equivalent to NSA in 5G commercial networks outside the laboratory. This test utilized Samsung Electronics' 5G core, 5G base station, and 4G base station equipment on SKT's currently operating commercial network.

Last year, SKT published a white paper on '5G Option 4' through the 'NGMN Alliance,' operated together with global telecom companies such as Deutsche Telekom in Germany and BT in the UK, leading the development of 'Option 4' technology that overcomes the limitations of existing Stand Alone (SA) technology to provide speeds and quality equal to or better than NSA while enabling Stand Alone (SA) specialized functions such as network slicing and evolved 5G core networks. The NGMN Alliance, established in 2006 by global mobile carriers including SKT and Deutsche Telekom, is a standardization organization that creates mobile network standard guides and provides them to equipment manufacturers. Network slicing is a technology that configures multiple virtual networks and allocates network resources optimized for each service characteristic, ensuring traffic quality according to customer situations. SKT also applied cloud-native technology to the core network, which innovatively improves equipment update and fault recovery speeds, enhancing stability and traffic efficiency.

SKT is striving to build an ecosystem with network and chipset manufacturers to enable commercialization of '5G Option 4' in 2023 after additional field verification this year.

SKT and Samsung Electronics expect to apply advanced 5G technology to various services such as Urban Air Mobility (UAM), autonomous driving, remote robot and heavy equipment control in the future.

Moon Jun, Head of the Technology Strategy Group at Samsung Electronics' Network Business Division, said, "Through the verification process incorporating 5G Option 4 technology, we confirmed improved performance compared to Option 2, which uses only 5G Stand Alone mode," adding, "Samsung Electronics will continue to cooperate with SKT to focus on developing and commercializing next-generation 5G Stand Alone (Option 4) technology."

Park Jong-kwan, Head of SKT Infrastructure Technology, said, "5G Option 4 is a core technology that can lead the evolution of 5G technology by utilizing Korea's world-first 5G commercialization achievements and the world's best LTE network together," and added, "We plan to strengthen cooperation with various domestic and international operators to foster the growth of the related ecosystem."

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