Samsung Electronics to Lead Global Standards on 5G Commercialization

Samsung Electronics will play a pivotal role in the final meeting of the 3GPP Working Group to set fifth-generation (5G) mobile telecommunication standards.

Samsung Electronics announced on May 21 that the company would participate in the final meeting of the 3GPP Working Group which would run in Busan from May 21 to May 25 with the aim of completing the first standards of 5G mobile telecommunications.

In this meeting, five RAN working groups that develop 3GPP 5G mobile telecommunication technology will participate and set the final technology for commercial 5G services such as 5G wireless access technology providing ultra-high-speed data and ultra-low delay performances, requirements for the emission of electric waves by 5G terminals and base stations and 5G mobile terminal evaluation methods among others in the 5G standard-alone mode.

In particular, Radio Access Network (RAN) Working Group 4 which Samsung Electronics will attend as the group leader will determine radio wave emission requirements for 5G terminals and base stations as well as radio wave power for each of frequency bands such as the 3.5GHz and 28GHz bands which will be used for domestic commercial services.

The 3GPP is planning to approve and announce the results of this meeting and 5G non-standalone standards which use both 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) and 5G completed in December of last year as the first standards in the general congress of the 3GPP that will be held in the US next month.

About 1,500 experts from around the world will attend the meeting including those from mobile operators such as SK Telecom, KT, LG U+, Verizon, AT&T and NTT DoCoMo, and chipset, handset and equipment manufacturers.

"The first 5G standards based on innovative technologies developed by Samsung Electronics will be set in this meeting," said Cho Seung-hwan, vice president of the Samsung Research Institute. "We expect that the meeting will accelerate the full-scale commercialization of 5G mobile telecommunications."

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics is leading the global 5G telecommunication industry in 5G standard activities, patents and the development and commercialization of new technologies. The Korean telecommunication hardware giant has been leading the establishment of a step-by-step roadmap for the development of the 5G standards since September 2015 and hosted the first 5G standard meeting in Korea in April 2016. Samsung Electronics also holds a total of five seats as the leader of the 3GPP Working Group and picked up the 3GPP Technical Achievement Award four times.

In addition, Samsung Electronics has registered the largest number of patents in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to date, listing 1,254 essential 5G standard patents.

Samsung Electronics successfully demonstrated mobility in a high-frequency (mmWave) band in 2015, 5G telecommunications in a car running 200 km per hour in 2017 and downloaded an 8K video and uploaded a 4K video in a high-speed train in 2017 for the first time in the world.

Based on these records, Samsung Electronics signed a commercial 5G contract with Verizon, the largest US mobile carrier in January of this year. The company is adding momentum to launching its commercial 5G services while receiving the approval of 5G base stations, outdoor customer-premises equipment (CPE) and indoor CPE from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).