Expected early commercialization of 5G small cell equipment by SMEs
Prospects for the use of high-capacity data communication services


A domestic research team has developed a millimeter wave (mmWave) band 5G small cell software technology. This opens the way for domestic small and medium-sized companies to commercialize 5G small cell communication equipment by applying domestic software rather than foreign software.

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced on the 27th that it has succeeded in developing 'ultra-high frequency band-supporting 5G small cell software' technology that improves transmission capacity and perceived communication speed in 5G communication shadow areas and densely populated areas.

5G is divided into the mid-band of 3.5GHz and the ultra-high band of 28GHz. In the 28GHz band, the minimum radius of the base station must be set to prevent transmission loss and propagation restrictions. 5G small cells are base stations with a small radius that are suitable for the 28GHz band. In addition, they can transmit high-capacity data with low transmission power, are easy to install, and have low construction costs.

Until now, companies related to LTE small cell equipment had to develop separate software for each evolving base station modem chipset. Even after distribution, maintenance and repairs are required, but the cost is not small, and the burden of keeping up with technological prowess is high due to the high dependence on imported products.

Accordingly, ETRI first developed 5G small cell software technology that can transmit more transmission capacity than the 3.5 GHz band and supports the 28 GHz band, which requires higher technology. The research team combined the software they developed with the 5G small cell modem chipset for base stations developed by Qualcomm, created a prototype that complies with the standards, and succeeded in communicating using commercial terminals.

The commercialized 28GHz 5G small cells are expected to be utilized in various 5G convergence fields such as non-face-to-face video learning, video conferencing, telemedicine, online concerts and hyper-realistic sports event services, smart factories, and smart cities that require high-capacity data.

In this demonstration, ETRI showed that multiple commercial terminals can be connected simultaneously in a 100MHz width, which is part of the 800MHz bandwidth allocated to the 28GHz band. In the future, we plan to combine beamforming technology and carrier aggregation technology to enable communication across the entire 800MHz bandwidth.

In addition, we plan to develop an intelligent, open interface that meets the next-generation standard (3GPP Rel. 16) beyond the 5G standard (3GPP Rel. 15) achieved this time, and advance the 5G small cell base station to the commercial level.

The technology was developed in 2018 as a project of the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Institute of Information and Communications Technology Planning and Evaluation (IITP) for the ‘Development of Intelligent Open Small Cell Technology Based on 5G NR’, in collaboration with SK Telecom, Contela, Ucast, and Qualcomm Technologies. 27 domestic and international patents and 8 international standard contributions were submitted, and the plan is to transfer related technologies to small and medium-sized enterprises.