SK Telecom President Park Jung-ho called on Korea to build a 5G telecom network to catch up with China, which is leading such areas as AI and big data based on a G4 network.
SK Telecom President Park made the remarks on the sideline of the CES 2018 that opened in Las Vegas on Jan. 9.
“Korea is a semiconductor powerhouse, but the nation has to look into other arenas, and China, using chips they buy from Korea, is widening its technology gap with the nation in the telecom, AI and big data sectors,” he said. “With the G4 telecom approaching the second-half lap, China is going ahead fast, and Korea should building a 5G telecom network and transform the national IT ecosystem to catch up with them,” Park said.
He added that SK Telecom will make efforts to take the initiative in building an environment for infrastructure (platform) telecom providers.
As to the reason why China is leading Korea in an era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, President Park cited the Chinese government’s regulatory reform.
“China is bringing out new products and services on the market thanks to fewer restrictions,” Park said. On the other hand, he said Korea’s self-driving car sector has too many regulations. When the government lifts a variety of restrictions hindering industry development, Korea will be a test-bed for new technologies in which numerous SMEs and startups utilize them.
With the upcoming advent of an era of 5G, SK Telecom is focusing on such priority projects as self-driving and telematics.
If and when a full-fledged 5G era is ushered in, telecommunications delays in the course of transmitting several signals will almost disappear, paving the way for the inauguration of an era of self-driving cars in earnest, he said. SK Telecom is making preparations for the days of self-driving cars. Korea’s largest telecom service provider signed a cooperative partnership with Germany mapping data and services provider Here on the sideline of the CES 2018.
SK Telecom President Park said his company will set up a booth at the CES 2019 next year to show off its new technologies on self-driving automobiles and telematics the company is developing on its own.
SKT Successfully Deploys 5G Infrastructure in K-City
SK Telecom announced that the company, along with Korea Transportation Safety Authority (KOTSA), successfully deployed 5G infrastructure in K-City, the country’s pilot city for self-driving vehicles. It is the world’s first 5G infrastructure-equipped test autonomous driving city.
Working closely with KOTSA, SK Telecom successfully deployed 5G infrastructure, including a test network with 20 Gbps download capacity, which allows for the download of a 1GB video file in 0.4 seconds, a 5G communications control center that transfers data to a test vehicle in less than 0.001 second, and 3D HD map with pinpoint accuracy of less than 20cm. The accomplishment was made just three months after the 5G infrastructure was set up.
K-City achieved an end-to-end system, meaning that both wireless and wired slots in the facility are connected in a 5G network. To realize its 5G infrastructure, the latest 5G technologies ― 5G virtualization, beamforming and beam-tracking ― were adopted.
This indicates that K-City will serve as a “5G self-driving outpost” where domestic companies and organizations can test their 5G autonomous driving technology and speed up their technological development. There isn’t a another self-driving city equipped with 5G technology anywhere else in the world. K-City, located in Hwaseong, southwest of Seoul, has a total area of around 363,000 square meters. It has a variety of test driving lanes that resemble real world driving conditions such as a school zone and bus-only lane.
“We will keep developing 5G infrastructure in K-City so that we can make it at the forefront of 5G self-driving,” said Park Jin-hyo, EVP, ICT R&D Center at SK Telecom.
“We will continue to work with KOTSA to make K-City a mecca for self-driving research and development,” said Lee Jong-ho, Senior Vice President and Vehicle Unit Leader at SK Telecom.
5G is part of the core infrastructure necessary to realize V2X (Vehicle to Everything) technologies, including vehicle to vehicle communications and vehicle to IoT/control center communications. Utilizing 5G infrastructure, autonomous driving can predict accidents by sharing information on driving and data on surrounding areas.
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