South Korea to Become the First Country in the World to Launch 5G Services
With one of the world’s top smartphone brands, South Korea is also in a race with China, the United States and Japan to market 5G.
South Korea is going to be the first country in the world to commercially launch fifth generation (5G) services this week, as it plans to roll out the latest wireless technology with Samsung’s new 5G-enabled smartphone Galaxy S10.
With one of the world’s top smartphone brands, South Korea is also in a race with China, the United States and Japan to market 5G with the hope that the technology will encourage various breakthrough in fields such as smart cities and autonomous cars driving up its economic growth, which showed a six-year low in the year 2018.
Ryu Young-sang, Executive Vice President, SK Telecom, which is South Korea’s top mobile carrier said, “It is meaningful that South Korean telecom companies are providing services and networks meeting South Korean customer’s high standard in speed and picture quality”.
Ryu also added, 5G will also change the landscape of the gaming industry, as it can help stream videos without delay, to be played on smartphones.
The technology will offer 20 times faster data speeds than 4G networks, which will ensure better support for the artificial intelligence and virtual reality with low latency. Sometimes it can offer 100-times faster speeds.
So far South Korean companies have spent billions on the campaigns to market 5G technologies.
SK Telecom is presently working with its memory chip making affiliate SK Hynix in order to build a highly digitized and connected factory powered by 5G technologies.
By the end of the year, the operator is expecting nearly 1 million 5G customers. At present, it has a total of 27 million users.
In February this year, Samsung was the first to unwrap a 5G phone, when it unveiled the Galaxy S10 5G and a folding smartphone, putting the world’s top smartphone maker in the pole position by volume in the 5G race.
A smaller local rival like LG Electronics plans to release its 5G version of the smartphone in South Korea later this month. In the United States, Carrier Verizon is planning to launch its 5G network in two cities on April 11.
Security concerns over 5G networks that are using telecom equipment made by China’s Huawei have delayed the release of these services. As the head of SK Telecom’s Information and Communication, Park Jin-Hyo ensures by saying, “I don't think we have a security issue in South Korea”.
He also says there is no fear of virus and hacking, as the company uses advanced technology to block eavesdropping or hacking into 5G networks.