KT Completes Mobile Edge Computing Centres For 5G

KT has completed the construction of mobile edge computing (MEC) telecom centres in 8 major cities in South Korea, the telco has announced.

The centres will allow the telco to process data from handsets close by, which is important for 5G that has ultra-low latency.

Previously, processing wireless data for 4G LTE involved having data traffic nationwide be sent to the central telecom centre in Seoul which often caused delays.

Those living in Jeju Island, the island region at the south of South Korea, will see internet access speeds be boosted by 44 percent compared to LTE as there will be an MEC centre there, KT said.

The telco said it also applied its 5G core equipment in the control and user plane separation (CUPS) architecture, as well as in the network virtualisation technology of the MEC centres.

CUPS separates devices that process signals from those that process traffic so that each can be expanded independently from each other. This helps centres expand their traffic processing capacity independently, which is very important for 5G mobility, KT said.

KT added that it plans to use MEC centres actively for the deployment of its own autonomous cars, smart factory, augmented reality, and virtual reality services.

The telco said at Mobile World Congress that it also plans to launch new VR games alongside the roll out of 5G network.

Meanwhile, Samsung is planning to launch the 5G version of its Galaxy S10 smartphone by the end of the month at the earliest in South Korea.

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