[Edaily Reporter Kim Hyun-ah ] LG Uplus(032640) is moving to establish international standards for quality management technologies designed to maintain stable service quality even in next-generation secure communication environments.

LG Uplus announced that it is pursuing the development of an international standard for next-generation secure communication quality management technology, which has been adopted as an international standardization project by the International Telecommunication Union’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T).

ITU-T is an international organization that establishes global standards for telecommunications technology. Within ITU-T, SG13 is a group that researches future networks and service quality; projects adopted by this group are developed into international standards following discussions among member states and companies.

At the recent ITU-T SG13 meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland, LG Uplus proposed a development roadmap for next-generation secure communication quality management technology, which it co-developed with IoT Communication Tech. This technology was adopted as an international standardization project by ITU-T last February.

Maintaining Communication Quality Even in PQC and QKD Environments

The core objective of this technology is to establish management standards for maintaining stable service quality even in communication environments where next-generation cryptographic technologies—such as post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and quantum key distribution (QKD)—are applied.

PQC and QKD are considered core security technologies in preparation for the era of quantum computing. However, since the processes of encryption, decryption, and key generation, distribution, and management are added, communication delays may occur, and maintaining the existing level of service quality has been identified as a challenge.

In response, LG Uplus has proposed latency management standards to ensure that existing service quality levels are maintained even in encrypted communication environments. Specifically, for latency-sensitive services such as voice calls, the company has set a target standard of 150 ms (0.15 seconds) or less—a level at which users do not experience discomfort.

LG Uplus also proposed a plan to manage both transmission delays occurring in the communication network and delays arising from the encryption process. The aim is to comprehensively manage various sources of delay to maintain the quality of existing communication services while implementing next-generation security technologies.

The company expects that if this technology is established as an international standard, global telecommunications operators, equipment manufacturers, and security firms will be able to build next-generation secure communication networks based on it and manage the quality of encryption services more systematically.

Kim Jong-cheol, Head of Fixed-Line Technology at LG Uplus, stated, “In a next-generation secure communications environment, not only security but also the service quality experienced by customers is important,” adding, “We will continue to strengthen our technological competitiveness in the global telecommunications market through the development of international standards.”