South Korean Communication Enterprise, NTT and 5G Base Station Interconnection experiment successfully-- Korea report (Photo: wowkorea)
South Korean communications company KT announced on the 6th (yesterday) that NTT DoCoMo and Fujitsu have successfully conducted a multi-vendor interconnection test with fifth-generation (5G) communication base stations. To this end, KT will build an open RAN (Open Wireless access Network) verification device to improve the compatibility of 5G base station equipment at the KT Fusion Technology Institute in Seoul. Open RAN is a kind of equipment that enables the base station equipment of various manufacturing companies to be connected to each other. This is one of the important technologies of 5G and requires more base station settings than fourth-generation mobile communications (4G). So far, the specifications of equipment manufacturing enterprises are not compatible, so they can only connect the equipment of the same manufacturing company's base station. KT introduced NTT DoCoMo to Fujitsu's 5G base station, the first Fujitsu to provide open RAN basic commercial services, into open RAN verification equipment, creating an environment for multi-vendor connectivity testing. In particular, KT connects its own open 5G base station equipment with Fujitsu's 5G equipment to complete interoperability verification. The interconnection test of transmitting the signals from the terminals used by users to the core network through the base station has also been successfully completed at the end of October 2021. Starting with the establishment of an open RAN verification device, KT plans to expand its cooperation with NTT DoCoMo to develop more evolved open RAN technologies, such as software-based virtualized base stations (VRAN). "through the success of this open RAN experiment, we can formulate strategies that can effectively respond to the new demand for wireless networks such as 5G specialized networks," said Li Zhengxike, director of the Infrastructure DX Institute of the KT Institute of Fusion Technology. "KT provides an environment for small and medium-sized enterprises to test the connectivity of 5G equipment from various manufacturers, and will also help activate the open RAN ecosystem in South Korea."
