KT completed the development of the first 5G standard together with 30 global member companies at the 78th General Assembly of 3GPP (an international cooperation organization for mobile telecommunications standardization) held in Lisbon, Portugal from the 18th to the 21st (local time).

This standard is a 5G 'NSA (Non-Standalone)' standard that links 5G and LTE networks. Since it allows for the shared use of existing LTE networks, many operators who share the vision for the early commercialization of 5G participated. In particular, numerous leading telecommunications companies from various countries participated, including Korea's KT, the U.S.'s Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint, the UK's BT and Vodafone, China's China Mobile, Japan's NTT Docomo, Germany's Deutsche Telekom, Italy's Telecom Italia, and France's Orange.

Originally, 3GPP planned to finalize the standard in June 2018, but at the 75th 3GPP General Assembly last March, several global operators, including KT, requested an acceleration of the standardization schedule, allowing the 5G NSA standard to be completed within the year. With the completion of this standard development, major telecommunications companies, including KT, are one step closer to 5G commercialization in 2019.

The 5G NSA adopted as a 3GPP 5G standard this time reflects KT's 5G know-how, which was developed through collaboration with the global industry to establish the 'PyeongChang 5G SIG' specifications to be showcased at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, and by building a 5G test network in the Gwanghwamun and PyeongChang areas to conduct tests.

In fact, KT proposed the world's first NSA network architecture in the 'Pyeongchang 5G SIG' specifications and has contributed to the establishment of 3GPP 5G architecture standards based on this. We have actively participated in 3GPP 5G standardization by submitting over 100 independent technical contributions and hundreds of joint contributions.

In particular, during the 3GPP Wireless Working Group meetings held since last April, KT proposed to 3GPP 5G wireless data transmission technologies such as 'Radio Beam Recovery' and 'Wireless Data Control Technology,' as well as new measures to efficiently build 5G networks such as 'Non-Standalone Network Architecture' and 'Base Station Separation Architecture,' and these technologies were finally reflected in the 3GPP 5G standard at the 78th 3GPP Wireless General Assembly.

"I take pride in having completed 3GPP 5G standardization early with global companies despite the very challenging schedule," said Jeon Hong-beom, Head of KT's Infrastructure Research Institute. "Based on our world-class telecommunications infrastructure and experience in building and operating services, we will prepare 5G services and respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution."