Clue to Solve Dilemma
SK Telecom announced on February 26 that it asked the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to complete the preparation of Non-Standalone (NSA) by December this year so that commercial 5G services can be available early and various services can be developed based on them. NSA is defined as a combination between 5G and LTE networks that can reduce the burden on investment in 5G networks, which is estimated to be 10 times that in 4G networks. It is said that the 3GPP is positive about the proposal.
These days, global mobile carriers are striving to come up with commercial 5G services ahead of the others. This type of services are essential for advanced self-driving, artificial intelligence (AI) secretary, smart city, the Internet of Things (IoT), etc. The mobile carriers, which have just finished investing in 4G networks, are in a dilemma though as their minimum investment in 5G is estimated to be five to 10 times that in 4G in view of the frequency characteristics of 5G using ultra-high frequency bands.
Under the circumstances, a global alliance of SK Telecom, KT, LG U+, AT&T, NTT Docomo, Ericsson and Qualcomm is working on the matter by means of NSA. Once this new standard is ready, global mobile carriers can provide commercial 5G services earlier than scheduled by using existing LTE networks.
In the meantime, SK Telecom is planning to propose a joint research project on federated network slicing at the board meeting of the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance scheduled for the same day in Barcelona, Spain. Network slicing can be defined as software-based realization of network exchangers, authentication servers and so on, that is, network function virtualization (NFV), followed by interworking between the resources and mobile carriers located abroad. By making use of this technique, international roaming users can enjoy 5G-based augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) services, connected cars and the like in optimal networks and without any loss in quality.
SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson developed and demonstrated the world’s first network slicing early this month. It is expected to be adopted as a research task by the NGMN.