SK Telecom today announced that it used an in-building 5G relay repeater operating in both 28 GHz and 3.5 GHz spectrums in the 5G trial network at the company’s Bundang office, a result of the company’s joint development with local vendors.
The in-building 5G relay repeater helps deliver seamless network connections in an indoor environment by transferring wireless signals to radio shadow areas.
The company was able to deliver speeds of up to 4 Gbps using the in-building relay repeater that it jointly developed with HFR, a local technology company. Operating in the 28 GHz band, radio waves of the solution are more likely to move in straight lines, being blocked more sharply by obstacles with shorter radio coverage. Frequency particularly suffers more loss inside a building, where areas are divided by walls.
Ensuring the quality of indoor service is the key to 5G service rollout, which uses ultra-high frequencies. With the success of delivering gigabit speeds using the in-building relay repeater, SK Telecom is in the process of accelerating development of 5G service that customers can enjoy even in an indoor environment.
The company has also worked with SK Telesys to develop an in-building relay repeater, which can deliver 5G radio signals in 3.5 GHz using the existing mobile communications infrastructure installed inside buildings.
Since the station uses the existing antennas for 2G, 3G and LTE services, the company can reduce time to build indoor network for 5G service by only installing the 3.5 GHz band relay repeater.
With the success of the demonstration, SK Telecom was able to develop its capabilities for 5G relay for both indoor and outdoor settings. In August, the company deployed a relay repeater in its 5G trial network near Gangnam Station in Seoul to successfully expand radio coverage in the densely populated urban area.
Park Jin-hyo, SVP and Head of Network Technology R&D Center, SK Telecom
The success of 5G wireless communications in the real-world environment will give us momentum to accelerate our effort to roll out 5G service earlier than expected.
