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With the 2018 Winter Olympic Games scheduled to take place in Pyeongchang, South Korea, local operators are preparing next-generation connectivity for athletes, visitors and staff. As part of those preparations, Korea Telecom (KT) and NEC have been conducting trials of 5G backhaul services to ensure high-capacity links will be available during the Games.
The trial used the E-band spectrum in the 70–80 GHz frequency range and deployed NEC’s iPASOLINK EX microwave communication system. NEC states that the iPASOLINK EX can deliver a backhaul transmission capacity of up to 3.2 Gbps, a rate comparable to fiber-optic connections. According to published reports, the trial successfully reached the claimed speeds under field conditions.
Hideyuki Muto, Deputy General Manager of NEC’s Mobile Wireless Solution Division, praised the partnership and highlighted the product’s suitability for demanding outdoor environments. He noted that iPASOLINK EX is compact and lightweight, allowing rapid installation in remote or rugged locations without extensive construction work. These attributes enabled the partners to deploy a high-capacity mobile backhaul network quickly across snowy, mountainous terrain around Pyeongchang.
The iPASOLINK EX makes use of ultra-multilevel modulation, including 256QAM, to achieve high throughput. It also supports narrowband channel options (250 MHz and 500 MHz), allowing operators to use assigned frequency resources efficiently while adapting to available spectrum allocations. That flexibility helps telecom providers tailor deployments to local regulatory and spectrum conditions.
Ichiro Kaneko, Senior Manager of NEC’s Mobile Wireless Solutions Division, added that iPASOLINK EX was engineered to deliver upgradeable data capacity in a compact and reliable radio unit. He said NEC intends to continue expanding its portfolio of mobile backhaul and fronthaul solutions to meet growing operator demands for higher performance and rapid deployment.
KT and NEC formalised their collaboration on 5G development in August 2015, working together to trial technologies and network architectures ahead of major events. The Winter Games venues, including Phoenix Park Ski World in Pyeongchang, served as the testbed for the current 5G backhaul experiments, providing realistic conditions for validating equipment performance in winter mountain environments.
Trials such as this demonstrate how microwave links in the E-band can complement fiber and other transport technologies to deliver multi-gigabit capacity where fiber rollout may be impractical or too slow. By combining advanced modulation, efficient channel usage and compact hardware, operators can deploy high-capacity backhaul to support bandwidth-hungry services during short-term events and in challenging locations.
The success of these field trials represents a practical step toward readying networks for next-generation services during high-profile events and for longer-term consumer and enterprise demand. As 5G trials continue, technologies that enable fast, flexible backhaul will remain a key component of end-to-end network planning, helping ensure that coverage and capacity meet user expectations.
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