SKT and Ericsson Verify AI-Based Wireless Network Adaptation Technology... "Foundation for 6G Evolution"

SKT employees are verifying the performance of AI-based wireless network adaptation technology. Photo by SKT

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Su-yeon] SK Telecom has applied artificial intelligence (AI) technology to mobile communication base stations to verify improvements in wireless network performance. This lays the foundation for the evolution of next-generation communication technology, 6G.

SKT announced that it has completed performance verification of AI-based wireless network adaptation (Link Adaptation) technology for base station intelligence in collaboration with Ericsson, a global mobile communication network manufacturer, and will actively apply this technology to its commercial network to enhance network performance.

The AI-based wireless network adaptation technology applied by SKT identifies the mutual radio interference effects between a cell, which is the coverage area of a base station's radio waves, and adjacent cells, and combines wireless environment information of user terminals to improve data transmission speeds.

By dynamically adjusting target quality indicators according to the situation based on wireless resource utilization information from surrounding base stations, smartphone terminals can achieve maximum performance in real time within the base station coverage area. In the existing mobile communication structure, the network's target quality indicator was set as a single fixed value, making it difficult to actively reflect changes in the wireless status of individual terminals within the base station radius, differences in service environments depending on location, and changes over time.

Following its existing AI network management system 'TANGO,' SKT recently developed smart paging, an AI-based core network technology. This is the first time in Korea that an AI solution has been applied to base station equipment, establishing a foundation for advancing and intelligentizing the entire mobile communication network.

To enhance the technical completeness of the AI wireless network adaptation algorithm, SKT trained it using machine learning (ML) techniques on various big data from commercial wireless network environments. SKT plans to continuously improve AI technology based on 5G base stations and actively promote AI technology development for 6G networks based on this.

Following quantum cryptography communication, SKT is proactively implementing key 6G candidate technologies such as this AI-based wireless network adaptation technology in commercial networks, and plans to accelerate research and development of other 6G candidate technologies including satellite communication and Open RAN in the future.

Jong-kwan Park, Head of Infrastructure Technology at SKT, said, "Improving wireless network performance through AI, one of the core technologies of 6G, has great significance for network evolution," adding, "We will continue efforts to develop and commercialize AI technologies related to 5G network advancement and use them as a cornerstone for 6G evolution."

Airin Cherian, Head of 5G Development and Performance at Ericsson, said, "Through this collaboration with SKT, we were able to optimize wireless utilization through AI technology and improve commercial network performance," and added, "We expect this to be applicable to various functions of LTE and 5G base stations in the future."