Boosting Market for 5G Antenna Devices, Base Stations
SK Telecom announced on June 17 that its proposal for open 5G base stations has been approved as a standard by the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA), the leading IT standardization institution in Korea.
SK Telecom presented the proposal jointly with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and other organizations.
The proposal concerns the standardization of fronthaul, which refers to the fiber-based connection in radio access network (RAN) infrastructure between the baseband unit (BBU) and remote radio head (RRH).
Currently, fronthaul equipment uses different protocols depending on the producer. SK Telecom is expecting that standardization will contribute to the vitalization of the base station equipment industry ecosystem.
5G networks require a denser deployment of antenna devices and distributed base station equipment that LTE networks, which increases the importance of fronthaul. Standardization of fronthaul equipment will increase the participation of new manufacturers, which in turn will speed up network construction in the future.
SK Telecom has been working to establish standards on open-type fronthaul. In June 2018, it joined the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) Alliance, an alliance of global 5G mobile carriers to set up open base stations.
At the same time, SK Telecom has been at the forefront of standardization in Korea. In December 2018, it submitted a Korean fronthaul standard based on the O-RAN standard to the TTA for the first time in Korea. It has since consulted with other mobile network providers to establish the standard.
In addition, SK Telecom secured fronthaul interconnection technology in March based on the standard established this time in cooperation with Korean relay company Solid and global measuring equipment company Keysight. It has successfully completed the demonstration of small power antenna devices and distributed base station equipment in the 3.5GHz and 28GHz bands that were developed by Solid.