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Operators say leading companies including Nokia and Ericsson have now joined technology R&D partnership first announced at MWC in February.
Germany-based operator Deutsche Telekom and South Korea’s SK Telecom said leading technology companies and operators have joined a 5G development programme that the companies unveiled at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona in February.
Companies including AT&T, Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm, and Samsung have signed up to Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom’s R&D programme – a move that Deutsche Telekom said would help to align global 5G research initiatives and ultimately cut the time required to deploy the next generation technology.
Deutsche Telekom CTO Bruno Jacobfeuerborn said the operator and SK Telecom are “collaborating with a good mix of industry participants”, which will help “to make the vision of a common worldwide standard come true”.
The executive said further progress towards defining 5G standards will be made following the “next release of the official 3GPP specifications”, which he noted “are set to form the basis of 5G.”
In a statement announcing the expansion of their collaboration, Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom said the additional partners will help them to identify and resolve potential problems with key 5G standards early on in the process of defining the specifications. That will, in turn, enable the companies to bring 5G to market faster, while the resulting standards should ensure a good experience for users.
Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom plan to deploy a transcontinental 5G network based on technologies including network functions virtualisation (NFV), software-defined infrastructure (SDI), distributed cloud, and network slicing. The companies said the main goal of the network would be to provide a global business case for 5G services by ensuring a reliable roaming experience.
The collaboration announced by the companies at MWC also covers joint development of Internet of Things (IoT), media platforms, and new products and services.
Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges at the time explained that the goal of partnering with SK Telecom was to “create an amazing technology partnership”, while delivering customer experience improvements by developing and exchanging new services.
Jang Dong-hyun, President and CEO of SK Telecom, added that the partners would be able to “unlock new growth opportunities and pave the way for the future ICT industry,” by leveraging the pair’s respective strengths.
