Samsung and KT Complete Korea’s First 5G SA and NSA Common Core

Samsung and KT announced they have successfully deployed Korea’s first 5G Standalone (SA) and Non-Standalone (NSA) common core in a commercial network. KT will commercially launch its SA network when 5G SA-capable devices become available in the market.

Samsung’s common core will run in KT’s Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) telecom centers across eight major Korean cities. The two companies have been collaborating since the development stage to deliver key 5G SA technologies on KT’s NSA infrastructure, which incorporates Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS) solution, edge traffic steering, and network slicing capabilities.

KT launched 5G commercial services in NSA mode last April, making them the only operator in Korea to adopt CUPS solution in its network. The CUPS architecture, defined in 3GPP standards, is a fundamental technology to 5G SA core that improves network scalability, flexibility and deployment by separating the control and user plane functions. CUPS also enables operators and enterprises to swiftly introduce 5G SA services through software upgrades, without the need to build a separate 5G SA core.