5G WIRE: Samsung and Ericsson make deals, KT makes plans

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5G action this day: Samsung nails 5G deals at home and abroad; Ericsson and Beeline to explore 5G and IoT together; KT has big plans for 5G, to say nothing of an open lab

 Samsung nails 5G deals at home and abroad

Samsung has scored 5G deals in Germany and its home base of South Korea with Telefónica Deutschland and SK Telecom, respectively.

Telefónica Deutschland and Samsung have agreed to run 20 fixed wireless access (FWA) trials in Germany starting in November. Immediately after installation, up to 20 households in Hamburg will test the technology over a period of three months.

Specifically, Samsung will support the set-up of the trial with a complete end-to-end millimeter-wave (26 GHz) solution, which will include a virtual core and 5G radio access unit on the network side, and 5G outdoor-units and indoor routers for the customer premises.

Meanwhile, Samsung announced that it has been selected by SK Telecom to supply the company with 5G solutions, including core and RAN equipment. Samsung and SK Telecom will begin 5G commercial deployments in October 2018 using Non-Standalone (NSA) architecture.

According to media reports, SK Telecom also tapped Nokia and Ericsson for 5G solutions … but not Huawei.

Read more here and here

Ericsson and Beeline to explore 5G and IoT together

PJSC VimpelCom (marketed under the Beeline brand) and Ericsson have signed a two-year strategic partnership agreement to develop 5G and IoT technologies.

The strategic partnership will focus particularly on improving the flexibility and efficiency of spectrum utilization and implementing new approaches to network architecture involving projects for core network evolution to a 5G core. The two companies will also deploy massive MIMO on Beeline’s networks and develop 5G demonstration clusters.

The deal also includes plans for joint projects to prepare Beeline’s networks for 5G, which includes scaling of LTE-A and LTE-A Pro technologies. IoT proof-of-concept testing is also one of the key parts of the agreement. Read more

KT has big plans for 5G, to say nothing of an open lab

Incumbent South Korean telco KT has unveiled a plan to invest a total of 23 trillion won ($20.4 billion) over the next five years in 5G and other innovative technologies as it prepares to launch commercial 5G services in March 2019.

KT also said it plans to focus on five different areas: smart cities, smart factories, connected cars, 5G media and 5G cloud. Specifically, the operator is collaborating with various companies and the Korean government to develop 5G services for both B2B and B2G (business to government).

Just prior to the announcement, KT unveiled a 5G Open Lab at its R&D center on the outskirts of Seoul, which will promote industrial collaborations with both local and global business partners to develop innovative 5G-based services. Read more …

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