The news broke after KT and Fujitsu completed their new verification facility, based at the KT Research and Development Center in Seoul (pictured), South Korea, where the two have since conducted tests.
conducted in October 2021 the tests saw KT leverage Fujitsu's Open RAN based 5G base station equipment to test call connection during interoperability trials for open fronthaul. KT provided support during the verification tests, while Fujitsu in turn received NTT DOCOMO's technical support for multi-vendor interoperability testing.
The tests involved verification of the interoperability between the base station controllers of Fujitsu's 5G base station equipment and a Korean medium-sized vendor's radio unit, as well as end-to-end communication tests. The companies successfully verified O-RAN compliant operation during the tests.
The MoU, effective today, focuses on the introduction of software-defined virtualised RAN (AKA vRAN) as well as RAN Intelligent Controller in alignment with the 5G Open RAN Ecosystem, an initiative whose participants include NTT DOCOMO and Fujitsu.
Their collaborations will include the construction of an O-RAN test facility and multi-vendor interoperability testing in Korea, meaning KT can being to introduce Open RAN technology to Korea's 5G network.
