Asian 5G Partnership
KT, the nation's second-largest mobile carrier, announced on October 16 that it held a general meeting of the “Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement (SCFA),” Asia’s largest strategic telecom business community, on the 14th and agreed to extend the strategic partnership with China Mobile and NTT DoCoMo for five years to strengthen cooperation.
The SCFA extension signing ceremony held at The Westin Chosun in Haeundae-gu, Busan, on the 14th was attended by the CEOs of the three companies – KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu, China Mobile Chairman Shang Bing and NTT DoCoMo President Kazuhiro Yoshizawa. With the latest agreement, the three firms will strengthen their cooperative relations in the medium and long term by 2022, five years after the previous end date of January 2017.
KT proposed China Mobile and NTT DoCoMo establish the SCFA, a strategic cooperative body between mobile operators in Asia. The three leading mobile service providers in Asia have teamed up in various sectors, such as network technology, roaming service, app and contents, Internet of Things and marketing, over the past five years and obtained a considerable achievement. They agreed to set up the frequency bands and standardization for the 5G networks in the first half of this year, and to commercialize the LTE-based Voice over LTE (VoLTE) roaming services last year. They also succeeded in demonstrating the next-generation WiFi auto roaming services between the three parties for the first time in the world.
Last year, KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu proposed his counter-partners at China Mobile and NTT DoCoMo create a task force for the 5G networks inside the SCFA, and his proposal was accepted. Accordingly, the three companies issued the “5G Joint Cooperation Declaration.” The declaration includes the sharing of 5G visions and roadmaps which are specialized in the Asian market, the joint verification of major 5G technologies and systems, the cooperation with international organizations to lead the global 5G standards and the continuous development of new 5G services and markets.
As the SCFA has been extended to 2022, the three mobile operators in Korea, China and Japan will make the best use of special demand for upcoming Olympics – the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing – in order to strengthen the leadership in the northeast Asian 5G network and information and communications technology (ICT) market in the future.