KT said on the 13th that its documents on the 5G network management solution proposed in the 5th meeting of ITU-T Focus Group on IMT-2020 (FG on IMT-2020)* were approved as draft recommendations for the world's first 5G wired and mobile integrated network management. With the approval, KT will likely continue to take the lead in global efforts for 5G standardization.    
 
The purpose of the meeting, held from March 8th through 11th, was to discuss global standardization of 5G, including:

• Communication network management
• Communication network architecture
• Virtualization

In the meeting, two of KT's contributions on 5G network management were adopted as draft recommendations, which will be reviewed by Study Group 13 of ITU-T for final approval.  
 
Mobile and wired communication so far have had their own global standards, and so operators had to repeat expensive processes of deploying new networks every time new standards were announced. The proposed solutions for 'integrated' networks are expected to eliminate the burden of such costs drastically. So, in that regard, KT deserves some credit.
 
Last year, the company took the lead in forming the ITU-T FG on IMT 2020, playing a key role in standardizing of E2E 5G Quality of Service (QoS). This year, as the champion of  'E2E Network Management for IMT-2020' division, it had its proposals on Basic architecture for 5G network management adopted as draft recommendations.
 
KT shared its ambition to have the very 5G standard solutions presented by Korea implemented not only in services to be provided during 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, but also in key areas of 5G services and infrastructures to be commercialized in 2020.
 
Dongmyun Lee, Executive Vice President at KT's Institute of Convergence Technology, noted, "KT's leadership in 5G and IoT-based next-generation communication ecosystem will be made possible by its communication infrastructure that offers unmatched, reliable speeds and quality."

* ITU-T Focus Group on IMT-2020 

• ITU: ITU, consisting of ITU-R and ITU-T, is the world's most authoritative standardization agency under the United Nations that is responsible for issues that concern global use of radio spectrum, communication policies, communication recommendations, etc.
• IMT-2020: Refers to the 5th generation mobile communication. ITU uses ‘International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) for 2020 and Beyond’ instead.
• Focus Group on IMT-2020: Founded by ITU-T for accelerated development of 5G global standards in June 2015.  

Focus Group on IMT-2020: include the following working groups (champions are shown in parentheses):

• E2E Network Management (KT/Korea)
• Fixed Mobile Convergence (China Mobile/China)
• Network Softwarizataion (5GMF/Japan)
• ICN (Cisco/USA)
• Architecture (ETRI/Korea)
• Mobile Fronthaul & Backhaul (Huawei/China)