South Korean telecom operator LG U+ is backing a new effort to develop quality-of-service (QoS) guidance for communications secured using post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and quantum key distribution (QKD).

The proposal, submitted to the International Telecommunication Union’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), addresses a practical challenge for telecom operators as they deploy quantum-safe security.

While PQC and QKD help protect communications against attacks from future cryptographically relevant quantum computers, they also introduce additional encryption, decryption, and key management processes that can increase end-to-end latency. For latency-sensitive applications such as voice and video, that processing overhead could affect service quality and user experience.

The proposal was jointly developed with IoT Communication Tech and was adopted by the ITU-T as study item Y.DrQoS-frCC in February. The study aims to develop a delay-related QoS framework for communications secured using PQC and QKD and to establish requirements for measuring and managing latency introduced by quantum-safe security technologies.

According to the ITU-T work program, the study is supported by LG U+, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), and Soonchunhyang University.

LG U+ said the proposal establishes quality management criteria to help operators deploy quantum-safe security while maintaining current service quality. For latency-sensitive applications such as voice communications, it proposed a target latency of about 150 milliseconds, which it said is below the threshold at which users are likely to notice delays.

The proposal also calls for operators to measure latency introduced by cryptographic processing alongside traditional network latency, providing a more comprehensive view of service performance in encrypted environments.

If ultimately approved as an ITU-T Recommendation, the framework could provide telecom operators, network equipment vendors, and security providers with a common framework for deploying PQC and QKD while maintaining consistent service quality.

"In next-generation secure communication environments, not only security but also the quality that customers experience is important," Kim Jong-cheol, head of wired technology at LG U+, said in a statement. "Through the development of international standards, we will strengthen our technological competitiveness in the global telecom market."