SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) today announced that the company and Samsung Electronics will team up to lead 5G network, the next generation mobile communications technology, on October 20, 2014. The two companies signed a MOU to start joint research on 5G network technology and service development.

SK Telecom and Samsung Electronics agreed to cooperate mainly to share 5G vision with standardization groups and technology forums in and out of the country, define and select frequency band suitable for implementation of 5G technology, conduct R&D and experiment on enabling technologies including the next generation small cell, massive MIMO and next-generation modulation/ demodulation, and develop large-volume and high-quality services of 5G and IoT.

Although no requirements or technical specifications have been globally agreed upon yet, 5G is widely conceived to be a set of telecommunication technologies and services that support a 1000 times more data capacity as LTE at speeds higher than 1Gbps per user over a densely-connected network.

In the era of 5G, it is expected that all __objects and humans will be connected over an ultra high performance network, bringing innovation and adding value to people’s mobile life in general.

Through the joint research with Samsung Electronics, SK Telecom plans to define and develop detailed key performance indicators for the next generation network so as to lead 5G technological evolution.

In an effort to ensure a differentiated customer experience over 5G network, SK Telecom is considering to develop different immersive services available anytime and anywhere based on giga-bit level data rates. The services include AR(Augmented Reality)/ VR(Virtual Reality), tele-presence and realistic service such as hologram.

In addition, the company plans to develop Advanced-IoT technology to enable hyper-connected services that connect all __objects and humans for interaction without limitation of time and place.

Kyungwhoon Cheun, Senior Vice President and Head of Communications Research Team of DMC R&D Center at Samsung Electronics, said, “The 5G communications system needs an ecosystem where operators and manufacturers cooperate in areas of related standards, devices, network equipment, new services and etc. Through this opportunity of cooperation between the two companies, therefore, I believe Korea will continue to lead mobile communications network in 5G as it does in 4G.”

Alex Jinsung Choi, Executive Vice President and Head of SK Telecom's ICT R&D Division, said, “We expect the two companies, mobile carrier and mobile network manufacturer, will share vision for 5G through the joint research, thereby generate synergy effect in the development of the next generation telecommunications technology. SK Telecom will strive to provide differentiated high-quality service to our customers by leading technology development of 5G network.”