Kumu Networks in business with Telefonica, SK Telecom on path to 5G
BARCELONA, Spain – Kumu Networks, a Bay Area-based company that started as a doctoral project by Stanford University students, announced major carrier deals with players Telefonica and SK Telecom.
Kumu specializes in self-interference cancellation, which is said to use full-duplex technology to eliminate energy that leaks into a radio receiver during transmission.
Kumu’s co-founder and director of product, Steven Hong, explained that his company enables a carrier to transmit and receive simultaneously on the same frequency, effectively doubling spectral efficiency.
“That’s big because if you look at just the most recent spectrum auctions in the U.S. … you saw that spectrum, small slivers of it, sold for $45 billion,” Hong said. “This is a limited asset in which, you know, good spectrum is like beachfront property. To take advantage of that spectrum in the most efficient way possible is a huge priority for all the operators in the entire wireless ecosystem.”
Telefonica announced the new partnership with Kumu Networks during Mobile World Congress; a similar deal is in place with SK Telecom and other as yet unnamed global carriers.
Hong detailed the importance of spectral efficiency in the race to develop a “5G” standard by 2018.
“In 5G, it’s not just about how you use spectrum more efficiently, but it’s also about how you use spectrum more flexibly,” he told RCR Wireless News. “Finding good spectrum, pairing good spectrum, is becoming increasingly difficult. What Kumu’s technology allows operators to do is take advantage of not just paired spectrum but unpaired spectrum as well. Now you can operate in-band full duplex in a single band doubling spectrum efficiency but also opening up the number of bands that are possible to use and still achieve very, very high throughputs and efficiencies.”
For more content from Mobile World Congress 2015, visit RCRwireless.com or the RCR Wireless News YouTube channel.
