SK Telecom And POSTECH Develop 5G Antenna Tech

SK Telecom and Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) has developed a 5G antenna control technology and filed for a patent, they announced on Tuesday.

The pair's technology maintains call quality in ultra-high 28GHz spectrum 5G by controlling the electrical characteristic of the antenna.

Ultra-high frequency reception sensitivity is affected by how users hold their smartphones or the angle of their head, but this technology was developed to offset that, they said.

Increasing reception sensitivity also decreases power consumption of smartphones.

Ultra-high spectrum such as 28GHz requires components to be placed in a smaller area compared to LTE, with SK Telecom and POSTECH saying they also took this into account when finishing testing for commercial launch.

SK Telecom, with compatriots KT and LG Uplus, is also preparing for the rollout of 5G in March in South Korea. The company excluded Huawei from its equipment vendor list in September last year. 

SK Telecom is a close ally of Samsung Electronics, and is extensively collaborating with them in 5G equipment research.

Related Coverage

NTT and NEC use 5G to stream 8K footage of a steam locomotive to its passengers

Good news for Japanese steampunks that have a 5G handset from the future.

Ericsson and Deutsche Telekom hit 40Gbps wireless backhaul speeds

Ericsson says the trial proves microwave backhaul can be used in a 5G era to attain speeds of 40Gbps.

CES 2019: The biggest 5G news

The biggest 5G announcements out of CES 2019 included Samsung's prototype 5G smartphone, Intel's SoC, Verizon's 5G showcase with Disney, Sprint's 5G and IoT combination, Qualcomm's promises on the value of 5G, and even Cisco's vision of 6G.

Separating the hype from reality in initial 5G mobile networks and smartphones (TechRepublic)

James Sanders and Karen Roby discuss the immediate future of 5G mobile networks and smartphones, and how existing equipment cannot be updated to 5G via software updates.