Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom are expanding their 5G alliance to include more operators and vendors around the globe.
Deutsche Telekom (DT) and SK Telecom announced they are expanding their 5G alliance to include more operators and vendors from USA, Asia and Europe. The goal of the 5G alliance is to resolve key standards issues and accelerate the introduction of 5G.
“We are collaborating with a good mix of industry participants including AT&T, Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Samsung to make the vision of a common worldwide standard come true right in time. From our point of view, the next release of the official 3GPP specifications are set to form the basis of 5G,” said Bruno Jacobfeuerborn, CTO of Deutsche Telekom, in a statement.
“5G is making its way forward much faster than initially expected. For 5G to be successful, early harmonization and standardization are essential. SK Telecom and DT started initial collaboration on 5G technologies and are now expanding the scope with a larger group of relevant stakeholders to promote early harmonization and expansion of the 5G ecosystem. We strongly believe that this will serve as a foundation for future standardization activities,” said Alex Jinsung Choi, CTO and head of Corporate R&D Center at SK Telecom.
Collaboration on 5G and IoT
Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom announced they had formed a 5G alliance at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2016. Both operators announced then they intended to collaborate in the areas of IoT and media platform while driving technology innovations and standardization of ICT, including key 5G technologies and network IT infrastructure. Expanding the alliance to more operators and vendors aims to help speed up standardization and therefore 5G deployments.
First transcontinental 5G trial network
As part of their collaboration, Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom will deploy a transcontinental 5G trial network, the first of its kind according to Deutsche Telekom. One of the main aims of the 5G trial network deployment is “to enable global reach for advanced 5G use cases by optimizing user roaming experiences,” said DT.
Ericsson is the infrastructure supplier to the transcontinental 5G trial network, which will use key 5G technologies such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), software-defined infrastructure (SDI), distributed cloud and network slicing.
IIoT News Recap: Tohoku University and NEC claim world’s most efficient AES crypto processing technology for IoT devices; SK Telecom teams up with Socar on connected car service development; Sigfox network reaches 50 percent nationwide coverage in New Zealand; Today’s forecast: Embedded SIM cards
IoT security: Tohoku University and NEC claim world’s most efficient AES crypto processing technology for IoT devices
Researchers at Tohoku University and NEC Corporation claimed to have succeeded in developing the world’s most efficient advanced encryption standard (AES) cryptographic processing circuit, with an energy consumption reduced by more than 50 percent of current levels. The discovery means it can become possible to include encryption technology in information and communication technology (ICT) devices that have tight energy constraints, in particular IoT devices, Tohoku University said.
Connected car: SK Telecom teams up with Socar on connected car service development
South Korean operator SK Telecom announced it will collaborate with Socar, Korea’s largest car-sharing company, on the development of connected car services. Under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with Socar, SK Telecom will provide Socar with its in-car infotainment device installed with the T Map platform and connect the cars via its LTE-M IoT network. The new connected car service will run a pilot test at the end of the year with a planned launch in the first half of 2017. “Through cooperation with Socar, SK Telecom successfully expands its IoT infrastructure and platform to the car sharing business,” said Kim Young-joo, senior vice president and head of Enterprise Business Office at SK Telecom. “We will work closely with Socar to develop and provide more advanced connected car services.”
LPWAN: Sigfox network reaches 50 percent nationwide coverage in New Zealand
Sigfox’s network in New Zealand has now reached a 50 percent nationwide coverage, according to Kordia, the company rolling out the infrastructure for Sigfox network operator Thinxtra, Computer World New Zealand reports. According to Kordia, the network also broke a record for the greatest distance over which data has been transmitted on a Sigfox network to date, at 212 kilometers. The entire country should be covered in about 14 months.
Today’s forecast: Embedded SIM cards to dominate cellular M2M space by 2020
By 2020, embedded SIM Cards will account for more than 50 percent of cellular M2M connections, according to new research by Juniper Research. “The introduction of the GSMA’s embedded specification is likely to fuel the opportunity for service providers to offer remote provisioning of SIM cards,” the study claimed. The rise in embedded SIM cards is set to not only improve service providers’ capabilities to update and augment offerings and subscriptions but also facilitate a range of new business models while reducing costs.
