In Cooperation with Nokia
KT has successfully tested 30-km long-distance fronthaul in cooperation with Nokia, a global telecommunication equipment giant.
Fronthaul is defined as the fiber-based connection in RAN infrastructure between the baseband unit (BBU) and remote radio head (RRH).
As fronthaul currently supports a distance of up to 20 km, it is impossible to operate a wireless base station if the distance exceeds 20 km. For this reason, mobile carriers provide LTE and 5G services through regional stations.
KT is the first mobile operator in Korea to apply 30 km-long fronthaul technology to commercial 5G and LTE networks. Experts predict that this technology will ramp up the efficiency of network investment and operation by boosting the centralization of distributed units that process digital signals of wireless networks.
Commercialization of 30 km long-distance fronthaul technology is expected to be possible after replacing most of KT's network equipment with Nokia equipment.