The global communication industry has been paying keen attention to the 5G demonstration at PyeongChang Winter Olympics for the first time in the world. It is because the trial service of 5G, the main artery of the 4th industrial revolution through which all things are linked through the network and numerous equipments are connected, is scheduled for PyeongChang Winter Olympics slated for February next year.
5G standard is expected to be finalized in 2020 for commercialization in earnest. The 5G demonstration at PyeongChang Winter Olympics is very important as it is likely to affect the future direction for standardization.
The 5G technology to be demonstrated at the PyeongChang Olympics has been led by KT, along with Samsung Electronics, Nokia, Ericsson and Intel. As it aims at commercializing 5G in 2019, business circles say that it could be realized ahead of the timing earlier anticipated by International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Then, where is the 5G technology to be shown this time in terms of the degree of completion, compared with the technology to be commercialized in the future
ITU calls for the transmission speed of 20 gigabit (Gbps) per second, 20~100 times faster than LTE (4th generation mobile communication), and the connection of over 1 million devices within a radius of 1㎢ as the minimum standard of 5G.
The 5G technology demonstration at PyeongChang is focused on the super-speed connection. As the standardization has not been made yet, it still falls behind the standard speed of 5G, but it is expected to be materialized at over 1.2Gb stably. Even if you do not visit the spot of PyeongChang Olympics, you can feel pleasure in a living room like a player running at the field actually.
5G technology can be understood by super-connection, super-intelligence and super-feeling. 5G technology boasts of super-speed to process large-size data such as 4K stream, VR or AR. It also requires absolute mission critical through ultra-low latency characteristics. In case that a network connection is directly linked to life such as self-driving car and medical operation, it is a prerequisite. It is also outstanding in terms of super connectivity that connects several thousands of devices with a single network. 5G technology was designed to solve these problems at once. In particular, the core of 5G technology is to distribute communication resources wanted by device through slicing smartly.
For instance, if a perfect environment for self-driving cars is built, the space of car can be changed to office or conference room. At the present first-phase level, a separate network is not necessary. At the second-phase level, however, it will be possible to communicate among cars, use VR AR devices on the move and deal with office work through network connection conveniently.
Many experts forecast that the speed network, the core of the communication technology development, and the "intelligent network" that combines IoE, Big Data and artificial intelligence(AI) mutually will become the next-generation communication network, completely changing the existing industries and market.
With the 5G demonstration at PyeongChang Olympics at the head, China and Japan are engaging in stiff competition to follow suit. China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom of China plan to invest $1800 billion over the coming seven years. On the other hand, NTT Docomo, Softbank and KDDI of Japan plan to invest for six years until 2023. Meanwhile, the preparation for a trial service slated for the end of next year gets underway in some regions in California and Texas in the U.S.
In Korea, an auction will be held for 5G frequency band next year. According to the result of the frequency auction and the 5G device supply like smartphone, investment will be made on a step-by-step basis.
Ahead of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) conference to decide the first private standard in the first half of next year, news agencies in the world are engaging in heated competition to preoccupy the global 5G standard.
Telecommunications Technology Association of Korea(TTA) announced on December 14 that the "PyeongChang 5G standard," a communication system developed by KT for 5G trial services, was selected as the best standard. PyeongChang 5G standard, the first 5G common standard in the word, satisfies the major ITU-regulated 5G service requirements such as ultra-low latency and super-speed.
Also, the KT-developed "5G network slice orchestration," which was adopted by ITU as one of the 5G standards last September, was singled out as the TTA standard. 5G network slice orchestration of KT refers to a core technology to allocate and operate network slices dynamically by optimizing network provider's virtualized infrastructure and satisfy various 5G service characteristics.
SK Telecom also recognized the 5G fronthaul technology standard, a core technology connecting the 5G network central base station and distributed antennas, as the TTA standard.
