5G partnership of the day – DT, SK and others

Not content with doubling down on its 5G partnership with Verizon, SK Telecom has double-doubled down by re-partnering with Deutsche Telekom on even more 5G research.

This time, though, the relationship has been opened up and now sees various technology leaders and operators from around the world align for the “coming worldwide communications standard and to enable a faster deployment”.

Deutsche and SK both announced back at MWC this year that they were seeing each other so they could work on IoT and related R&D areas, like 5G. Now they’ve realised that working with a lot of people will get more issues resolved faster and develop working technology solutions more quickly. It was even handily explained why standards are useful.

“When the industry completes a technology standard, the roll-out experience is smoother which helps businesses and consumers start using 5G technology even faster”, said Deutsche Telekom when announcing the expanded partnership.

The partnership between DT and SK has already seen confirmation that they will deploy the world’s first transcontinental 5G trial network, based on what the former refers to as key 5G technologies, including NFV, SDN, distributed cloud and network slicing.

Elsewhere, SK has been busy making other agreements as it announced the signing of another MoU, this time in the connected car industry. In partnership with SOCAR, Korea’s version of Uber, SK will work on launching an in-car infotainment system based on its LTE-M (LTE Machine) network dedicated to IoT applications. It says users will be able to enjoy “diverse multimedia content” and make future car sharing service reservations.

Speaking of IoT, Deutsche Telekom’s also been at it. This time it’s announced that its new IoT smart hub – the QIVICON Home Base 2.0 – will be shown off at the IFA show in Germany next month. The Home Base 2.0 is meant to help companies deploy a white label smart home solution to customers within individual industry verticals.