SK Telecom today opened 5G Playground, an innovation center for developing 5G technologies and use cases.
SK Telecom plans to launch a 5G trial service in 2017.
5G Playground, located at its Corporate R&D Center in Bundang, Korea, consists of 5G Testbed, which hosts multiple technical testbeds and testing equipment; Virtual Experience Room, where SK Telecom showcases its services and devices; and T Open Lab, which supports the establishment of 5G ecosystem through support for venture companies.
SK Telecom has set up testbeds with companies including Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung Electronics, Intel and Rohde & Schwarz to develop and test 5G technologies.
SK Telecom in association with Nokia is developing a centimeter-wave (cmWave) 5G radio system by combining 5G enabling technologies, including newly designed air interface, massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) and high order modulation technology.
Nokia and SK Telecom demonstrated 19.1Gbps transmission speed over the air using 256 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), 8×8 MIMO transmission and 400 MHz of bandwidth.
In addition, they have developed a 5G 3D system level simulator optimized for the Korean mobile environment as well as an SDN-enabled Evolved Packet Core (EPC) with separated user and control plane functions to support increase in traffic and low latency for future 5G services.
SK Telecom and Ericsson have built centimeter-wave (cmWave) 5G radio system designed with new air inter-face/frame ensuring lower latency, lower inter-cell interface and dynamic down-link/uplink transmission.
Ericsson and SK Telecom have demonstrated 5G network slicing where a single physical network is partitioned into multiple virtual networks providing optimum support for different type of services.
Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom developed 3D beamforming techniques with large scale array antennas at both transmitter and receiver sides to overcome unfavorable channel conditions in millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications.
SK Telecom and Intel will develop Anchor-Booster Cell and Massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) with Cloud RAN(C-RAN).
Rohde & Schwartz and SK Telecom will design and verify various types of new air interfaces.
“SK Telecom’s 5G Playground will serve as a hub for innovations towards achieving 5G, which holds the power to turn our imaginations into reality,” said Alex Jinsung Choi, chief technology officer of SK Telecom.
Baburajan K
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