When I say “hologram call,” I assume most of us immediately picture Princess Leia pleading for Obi-Wan Kenobi’s help as a tiny, 3D image projected from R2D2. While the experiment conducted by carriers Verizon and KT isn’t exactly that, it’s still pretty cool.
According to Korean media reports, the test call took place while Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam was in Seoul to meet with KT CEO Hwang Chang-gyu.
KT is developing hologram calling as a flagship 5G service. For this test, both Verizon and KT used 5G trial networks deployed in the 28 GHz band.
“The collaboration under the current partnership of Verizon and KT has been very productive as shown by the demos we have seen today,” McAdam said, according to The Korea Herald. “We will continue to work together to lead the global 5G business by developing innovative technologies and services.”
A KT rep said the 5G hologram calling service will let users “meet a person in a remote area in a real size in real time.”
While he was in Korea, McAdam also met with the CEO of carrier SK Telecom.
Hwang, the CEO of KT, said global industry cooperation will be necessary to develop and launch next generation networks and services.
“Neither one company nor one country alone can commercialize 5G by itself, let alone by 2019,” Hwang said. “Therefore, collaboration, like what we have with Verizon, is all the more important in order to establish the global 5G mobile ecosystem.”
