“It brings great pleasure to see where all the contributions we have been making on 5G specifications are leading us,” said Hong-beom Jeon, Executive Vice President, Head of Infra laboratory, KT. “The fact that 5G is no longer a dream owes its debt to the collaborations we have carried out with operators like Verizon and vendors like Samsung. Our efforts have enabled some of the most demanding tasks to come to fruition.”

“By working closely with industry leaders like KT and Samsung, we are finally making 5G a reality,” said Ed Chan, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Architect, Verizon. “Seeing Samsung’s 5G end-to-end solutions in action, including a working prototype 5G tablet, underscores how important our collaborative relationship has been in helping accelerate the availability of commercial 5G mobility for customers. As we say at Verizon, ‘we don’t wait for the future, we build it.’ We are glad to be working with like-minded partners to build the 5G future globally.”

“We have been working closely with KT and Verizon to demonstrate mobile 5G use cases at two prestigious global events,” said Woojune Kim, Senior Vice President and Head of North American Business, Samsung Electronics. “This demonstration conducted today with KT and Verizon represents a huge milestone for us, showing our contribution to the development of early 5G global specifications and 3GPP NR (New Radio), and spotlighting the next generation Samsung technologies that let operators implement robust new services.”

Samsung enabled the demonstration of 5G experiences at the event by supplying network Infrastructure composed of 28GHz 5G access units, 5G home routers(CPEs), virtualized RAN and virtualized core network, as well as the prototype 5G device. Samsung has leveraged in-house technology and assets to develop the first commercial ASIC-based 5G modems and mmWave RFICs, and with these technical advancements, Samsung has been able to bring one of the smallest 5G radio base stations and 5G home routers (CPEs) to market.

Among the Samsung 5G network products demonstrated at the Verizon and KT sponsored sports events is the fully-functioning prototype handheld 5G tablet – capable of running on multi-gigabit per second speeds via 5G networks, as well as the latest 4G LTE network speeds. The proto-type tablet is also capable of supporting data session handovers between 4G LTE and 5G and demonstrates advancements in chipset and antenna technology required to support future commercial devices.

The three companies have been working closely on 5G research and development since 2015, including in Verizon’s 5G Technical Forum (5GTF) and KT’s PyeongChang 5G Special Interest Group (5G SIG), which collectively released early 5G specifications with the aim of building a strong 5G ecosystem. This collaboration generated valuable data that helped inform and accelerate the 3GPP NR 5G global standard.

About Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ), headquartered in New York City, generated $126 billion in 2017 revenues. The company operates America’s most reliable wireless network and the nation’s premier all-fiber network, and delivers integrated solutions to businesses worldwide. Its Oath subsidiary reaches about one billion people around the world with a dynamic house of media and technology brands.

The 5G handover was successfully carried out in a test divided into two scenarios. First, a 5G device mounted on a vehicle that travelled at a speed limit of 60km/h drove between two 5G base stations on a metropolitan expressway.

The second scenario was designed to verify the characteristics and performance of the 28GHz spectrum in Line of Sight (LOS) and Non Line of Sight (NLOS) environments. At the LOS environment, the vehicle drove through the heart of the city and as a result, a maximum throughput of 3.7Gbps was achieved. This is especially the case with highly dense metropolitan areas such as Tokyo, packed with skyscrapers as well as a myriad of obstacles of various materials from glass and concrete to wood and metals.

“We are pleased to have proven the feasibility of 5G mobility service in Tokyo, one of the densest cities in the world,” said WooJune Kim, Vice President and Head of Next Generation Strategy at Samsung Electronics. “Through today’s demonstration, we have proven that challenges that are likely to occur at highly dense metropolitan areas can be successfully overcome when the right technologies are implemented. Together with KDDI, we look forward to taking steps toward the realization of 5G-driven services.”

Handover between 5G base stations is a required element to maintain a seamless data connection during a user’s movement between base station coverage, making it a critical enabler of 5G commercialization. As 5G communication technology utilizes beam forming technology that tightly focuses radio waves into narrow beams, both the device and base station need to rapidly search for the optimal beam combination, calculate the ideal radio signal, and seamlessly relay data traffic between base stations.

Ever since the deployment of KDDI’s commercial CDMA network in 2002, Samsung has been closely cooperating with the operator through to the latest LTE-A technologies. The two companies have extended and strengthened their partnership in order to tackle the challenges and potentials of 5G, an area that Samsung has been focusing its research on since 2011.

About KDDI Corporation
KDDI, a comprehensive communications company offering fixed-line and mobile communications services, strives to be a leading company for changing times. For individual customers, KDDI offers its mobile communications (mobile phone) and fixed-line communications (broadband Internet/telephone) services under the brand name au, helping to realize Fixed Mobile and Broadcasting Convergence (FMBC). For business clients, KDDI provides comprehensive Information and Communications services, from Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) networks to data centers, applications, and security strategies, which help clients strengthen their businesses. For more information please visit http://www.kddi.com/english.