Foundation for 5G Services
SK Telecom announced on September 3 that Nokia and itself succeeded in reducing the round-trip delay between an LTE terminal and a base station from 0.025 to 0.002 seconds for the first time in the world.
The two companies applied uplink prescheduling and short transmission time interval at the same time to realize the low-latency LTE. Uplink prescheduling is for immediate data transmission from a terminal to a base station and short transmission time interval is to reduce the length of time that is required for data transmission between the two to approximately one-seventh.
Uplink prescheduling and short transmission time interval are two of the key parts of 5G communications for reduced communication delays. SK Telecom explained that it succeeded in reducing the round-trip delay by appropriately modifying the two techniques and the techniques are expected to form a foundation for commercial 5G services with a delay close to zero. “For example, a self-driving vehicle driving at a speed of 150 km per hour in an LTE environment is likely to require one meter to begin to decelerate in response to a signal whereas the distance can be reduced to 8 cm when low-latency LTE is applied,” said the company.
The new and advanced LTE technology can also be utilized for the purpose of rescue robot development in that it supports real-time on-site monitoring and equipment control. In addition, it can contribute to next-generation media services based on virtual reality, augmented reality and the like.