"SKT 5G In-Building Technology Also Used in Europe: Collaboration with Deutsche Telekom Bears Fruit"

Claudia Nemath, Executive Officer for Technological Innovation at Deutsche Telekom's Board of Directors, is introducing the '5G RF Repeater' at a press conference held in Bonn, Germany, on the 26th (local time).

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Cho] SK Telecom's 5G technology will be introduced in Europe. It is evaluated that they have secured a foothold to expand 5G activities worldwide by partnering with Deutsche Telekom, the largest telecommunications company in Europe.

SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom announced on the 27th that they will install the '5G RF (Radio Frequency) repeater,' developed based on Korean technology, in major German cities in the second quarter of this year and launch customer experience services.

The '5G RF repeater' is a key device that receives 5G signals from outdoor base stations and amplifies and spreads them indoors, such as in buildings, tunnels, and underground spaces where signals are hard to reach, thereby expanding 5G coverage. SK Telecom's '5G RF repeater' has the advantage of relaying signals without a wired network connection. This has attracted particularly high interest in Germany and Europe, where wired network environments are relatively poor compared to Korea.

The '5G RF repeater' has been installed in major buildings in Korea since last year. SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom upgraded this repeater to suit the German and European 5G environments in January this year. The two companies began on-site testing of the repeater this month and will start customer experience services for 200 customers in Germany from the second quarter of this year. To this end, Deutsche Telekom began recruiting participants among individual and corporate customers from the 27th of last month. Going forward, the two companies plan to analyze customer feedback and data obtained from the customer experience service to optimize the repeater for the German 5G network and then commercialize it in Germany.

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This achievement came six months after discussions began in September last year through a joint task force in the field of joint development and commercialization of 5G solutions, which was one of the collaborative projects between the two companies.

Ha Hyung-il, Head of SK Telecom's Corporate 2 Center, said, "We have created an opportunity for the world's first 5G solution developed by SK Telecom to spread worldwide," adding, "We are smoothly advancing other projects with Deutsche Telekom, such as communication platforms, artificial intelligence, and cloud, so we expect various collaborative outcomes in the future."

Hagen Rickmann, Managing Director of Deutsche Telekom's Business Customer Division, said, "The 5G in-building solution is especially useful for customers running small businesses," and added, "This solution will provide new opportunities to Deutsche Telekom customers."