The technology developed by ETRI is designed to support a wide range of future mobile communication services by incorporating 6G standards outlined by 3GPP
South Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) said it has successfully demonstrated a 200 Gbps wireless link, marking a breakthrough in the development of 6G mobile communications.
This achievement, completed late last year, represents what it claims to be the world’s first proof-of-concept (PoC) 6G mobile communication system operating at such speeds, ETRI said in a release.
The technology developed by ETRI is designed to support a wide range of future mobile communication services by incorporating 6G standards outlined by 3GPP. ETRI noted that the system leverages a wide bandwidth of 10GHz in the ultra-high-frequency Sub-THz spectrum and employs multi-point transmission and reception techniques. By using four base station radio units (RUs) transmitting simultaneously on the same frequency band and advanced beamforming to minimize signal interference, the research team achieved a combined transmission speed of over 200Gbps.
To achieve this, ETRI implemented innovative methods for signal transmission and reception, advanced interference reduction techniques as well as encoding and decoding technologies capable of managing large-capacity data channels. These developments quadrupled the data throughput and demonstrated the potential of Sub-THz frequencies for short-range, high-capacity applications, such as indoor picocells or high-resolution sensing.
ETRI emphasized that this achievement was made possible through collaborative efforts with domestic partners and years of foundational work. The research was supported by the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT and the Institute of Information and Communications Technology Planning and Evaluation (IITP). Key collaborators included Samsung Electronics, CleverLogic, Snet ICT and Komotech.
Since establishing Korea’s 6G vision in 2020, ETRI said it has been actively promoting international standardization, contributing to the ITU-R IMT-2030 framework and advancing core 6G technologies through government-supported initiatives. This includes the 6G core technology development project launched in 2020 and the next-generation network industry technology development project initiated last year.
ETRI’s research team plans to showcase this technology, along with other 6G innovations, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025, which would take place in March in Barcelona, Spain. The exhibit will highlight key technologies, including 200Gbps Sub-THz wireless communication, O-RAN-based E-MIMO, vRAN, AI-driven wireless access, low-earth-orbit satellite communications and ultra-precision service networks.
Baek Yong-soon, head of ETRI’s Stereoscopic Communication Research Lab, stated that the successful demonstration of the world’s first 200Gbps 6G PoC system underscores Korea’s leadership in this field.
6G mobile communications, expected to launch globally by 2030, will enable applications such as immersive metaverse experiences, hyper-connected IoT, autonomous vehicles and aerial mobility.
