SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) today announced that it, together with Samsung Electronics, had successfully tested handover between 5G base stations at 28GHz in the outdoor environment.  

Handover between millimeter wave 5G base stations is a key technology that supports Gbps-level wireless communications anywhere, anytime. The purpose of inter-cell handover is to maintain seamless connectivity as the subscriber moves out of the coverage area of one base station into that of another. With the successful field trial of the handover technology, SK Telecom and Samsung have become the world’s first to verify the performance of the 5G handover technology by connecting multiple millimeter wave base station systems to operator’s fiber optics infrastructure.

SK Telecom and Samsung Electronics have built a millimeter wave 5G system in the end of August 2015, and successfully tested the performance – e.g. coverage, transmission speeds, etc. - of the 5G system at 28 GHz in the outdoor environment in March 2016.

Moreover, the two companies have successfully demonstrated full HD video calling as well as UHD video streaming over millimeter wave 5G system and showed the possibility of large-volume, low-latency 5G services.

“By securing the millimeter wave handover technology - which enables users to experience seamless provision of 5G services while on the move in a wide area – the two companies are now one step closer to a basis for realizing pre-5G and 5G services,” said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network R&D Center of SK Telecom.

“Through our demonstration of handover between mmWave 5G base stations, we have realized a network environment that is the closest by far to the real 5G network to be created in the future,” said Cheun Kyung-whoon, Executive Vice President and Head of Next-Generation Business Team of Samsung Electronics.