Competition for 5G Initiative
According to industry sources, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is planning to launch an international 5G standardization process next year. At present, mobile carriers across the world are striving to take the lead in the fledgling 5G mobile communications market with 5G technology predicted to be put to commercial use in 2020.
The South Korean government is planning to demonstrate its candidates at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics scheduled for February 2018. In this regard, KT, an official sponsor of the event, opened to the public its 5G standards for the occasion in June this year. Major mobile carriers and equipment manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics, Nokia, Ericsson, Intel and Qualcomm are participating in the standards and KT is going to work with Verizon as well.
SK Telecom also formed a partnership for 5G technology standardization with 15 companies, including AT&T, China Mobile and Deutsche Telekom.
Non-South Korean telecom operators and equipment suppliers are trying to get ahead of the others, too. For example, China Mobile, the largest in the world in terms of the number of subscribers, is working with the 42 partners including Huawei, Nokia, Intel and Audi. T Mobile is to cooperate with Samsung Electronics for 5G tests.