Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom to Jointly Develop SDN Proof of Concept for LTE Core Network

Samsung Electronics announced that it will partner with Korean telecommunications service provider SK Telecom, to develop a Software Defined Networking (SDN) proof of concept (PoC) for an LTE Core Network environment. Both companies recently announced their plans to develop virtualized, software-based networking solutions.

“SDN is one of the key technologies for next generation network innovation and cloudification. Through the development of an SDN-enabled Evolved Packet Core solution, we plan to provide differentiated data service experiences to end users,” said Jin-hyo Park, Senior Vice President & Head of Network Technology Center at SK Telecom.

The goal of the PoC, which will undergo testing in October 2015, is to determine the feasibility of separating and independently managing user and control plane traffic in a realistic LTE core network environment. The solution, built on a platform of open-source software, will be tested for its ability to provide traffic management capabilities and determine optimized transportation paths based on types of subscribers and services, while minimizing undesired traffic load on core network infrastructure.

By leveraging this solution, operators will witness greatly improved efficiency in their transport network infrastructure, through reduction in unnecessary traffic, bottleneck prevention and maintenance of Quality of Service throughout the network. Not only will this positively impact the subscribers’ perception of network responsiveness, but it will also significantly reduce the total cost of operation for service providers as traffic demand continues to grow.

“Software-based technologies such as Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and SDN are key enablers for innovative services and efficient network operations,” said Dong-Soo Park, Executive Vice President and Head of R&D for Network Business at Samsung Electronics. He added that, “Samsung continues to look at how the latest industry technologies can benefit network operators and enable the next generation of innovative user services and applications”.

With Samsung’s 5G Vision <5G Vision White Paper>, mobile networks expect data throughputs to increase exponentially, while latency and operational costs decrease. In order to meet these expectations, Samsung is determined to identify key technologies that bring networks closer to its goals. The flexibility and powerful traffic management of SDN are an important step towards Samsung’s 5G network capabilities.

In February, 2015, Samsung announced that it had been selected by SK Telecom to provide its AdaptiV Core <Samsung’s Virtualized Core Solution Chosen to Support SK Telecom’s Nationwide IoT Network> platform to support the world’s first dedicated IoT network based on NFV. Samsung will leverage this experience to apply many of the same principles of virtualized, software-based infrastructure to the SDN proof of concept implementation in October, 2015.

About SK Telecom

SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM, KSE: 017670), established in 1984, is Korea’s largest telecommunications company with more than 28 million mobile subscribers, accounting for around 50% of the market. The company reached KRW 17.164 trillion in revenue in 2014. As the world’s first company to commercialize CDMA, CDMA 2000 1x, CDMA EV-DO and HSDPA networks, SK Telecom launched the nation’s first LTE service in July 2011. SK Telecom also became the world’s first mobile carrier to commercialize 150Mbps LTE-Advanced in June 2013 and 225Mbps LTE-Advanced in June 2014 through Carrier Aggregation(CA). In line with its efforts to swiftly move towards the next-generation mobile network system, or 5G, it successfully commercialized 300Mbps tri-band LTE-A CA. As of the end of March 2015, the company has over 17.4 million LTE and LTE-Advanced subscribers. Based on its strength in network operations business, SK Telecom is seeking new growth engines through three innovative platforms namely Lifestyle Enhancement Platform, Advanced Media Platform and IoT Service Platform. For more information, please visit www.sktelecom.com or email to press@sktelecom.com.