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SK Telecom in 5G project with Bell Labs
19 October 2009
South Korea’s innovative operator SK Telecom is linking up with Bell Labs, owned by Alcatel-Lucent, to focus on new generation communications research, including technology beyond 4G and LTE. The companies could — but don’t — use the term “5G”.
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[SK Telecom]
[Alcatel-Lucent]
[Bell Labs]
[4G]
[5G]
[cloud computing]
The two companies have not said how long the deal will last or the commercial relationship that will govern it. So far the deal is simply a memorandum of understanding that provides a framework for research projects in next generation communications networking, they say.
Jae Wan Byun, senior vice president of SK Telecom and head of the company’s Institute of Network Technology, said: “This agreement is a great opportunity for both companies to collaborate on future core telecommunication technologies through a combination of SK Telecom’s wide range of end-user services and capability in network commercialization and Bell Labs’ market proven R&D power in telecommunication area.”
The information published by SK Telecom and Alcatel-Lucent identifies several areas of interest in what they call “post 4G wireless telecommunication technologies and intelligent network technologies”:
- defining the architecture and shape of wireless networks beyond 4G networks;
- developing methods for enabling increasingly complex networks to manage and configure themselves;
- technologies that can be applied at the core of operator networks within the next two to three years such as cloud computing.
Intriguingly, the reference to cloud computing was included in the information about the deal put out by SK Telecom, but excluded from the Alcatel-Lucent version.
Debasis Mitra, head of global research and university partnerships at Bell Labs, said: “We believe that Bell Labs’ preeminent research capabilities in emerging network technologies combined with SK Telecom’s market experience could lead to new growth opportunities for Alcatel-Lucent and enable SK Telecom to achieve its strategic objectives.”
Bell Labs was the research labs of the whole AT&T system until the telecom operator was broken up in the early 1980s, and subsequently became the labs of the manufacturing arm, which became Lucent and then Alcatel-Lucent. GTB
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