Verizon wants to be a pioneer in 5G technologies and in order to do that it recently partnered up with Korean carrier KT.
The two companies aim to work together to push forward the technologies that will pave the way for a global 5G standard.
Hwang Chang-gyu, the chairman of KT met with Verizon's chairman Lowell McAdam on Friday, but the corporations announced the deal on Monday, June 27.
Currently, the notion of 5G is somewhat of a blur. The telecom industry simply uses it to describe the "thing that comes after 4G," but there is no official established standard. Carriers and manufacturers are making their 5G speed tests public, but until a global standard is established, it is difficult to gauge the accuracy of the 5G speed tests by the companies.
Both Verizon and KT have in their scope to solve this mystery.
"Global partnership for the 5G standardization is very crucial ahead of its planned commercialization in 2020," KT's chairman notes in a statement.
He goes on to add that a single country or enterprise is unable to accomplish this challenging task.
The two companies did not go into much detail as to how exactly they plan to achieve it.
It should be noted that Verizon already took steps toward field-testing its 5G equipment, as the company inked a partnership with Samsung to make it happen.
Reports from The Korea Times show that the two ventures will cooperate to craft next-generation network technologies. Most industry experts consider that software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) are the building blocks of the upcoming wired and wireless businesses. Insiders familiar with the matter point out that SDN and NFV focus more on the software and server end than the traditionally hardware-based solutions.
The 5G service is expected to roll out by 2020, but Korea Telecom aims to be ahead of the pack and deliver 5G capabilities by 2018 during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. The deal between KT and Verizon means that the latter will pool its efforts to push out the next generation of wireless service, which should make sure KT checks its objective. Keep in mind that Verizon was the first carrier that introduced 4G LTE service in the United States and there is a high chance to repeat the feat with 5G.
Although 5G remains a debatable subject, a tight partnership of the two large global carriers can make sure that the technical infrastructure is ready quicker than expected.
Are you excited about the perspective of having data speeds 100 times faster than 4G LTE?
