South Korean Mobile Operators to Launch 5G Simultaneously on Korea 5G Day

South Korea is said to be just behind China in the race to be first to deploy 5G service at scale.  South Korean mobile operators have now all agreed to launch 5G services on the same day in order to avoid excessive competition.

SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus will all launch services on “Korea 5G Day,” which they expect to hold some time around March next year, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported.

The arrangement was fostered by the nation’s Ministry of Science and ICT during a meeting on Tuesday, July 17th. Minister You Young-min asked the operators to co-operate closely to ensure that Korea is the world’s first country to commercialize 5G, and to avoid excessive competition. At the meeting, representatives of the operators urged the government to introduce measures to help operators cope with the major investments required to deploy 5G networks and support the introduction of future technologies such as automated vehicles. Other suggestions included tax benefits for 5G investments, the newspaper report states.

From left, LG U+ CEO and Vice Chairman Ha Hyun-hwoi, KT CEO Hwang Chang-gyu, Minister of Science and ICT You Young-min and SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho meet in Yeouido, western Seoul, on Tuesday. [MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND ICT]

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Minister You added that the government’s push toward lowering household phone bills will hold even in the 5G era and asked carriers to come up with wise phone plan options.

During the meeting, KT CEO Hwang Chang-gyu said 5G commercialization calls for big investments as the network will be used to support many business-to-business services, unlike the current 4G network that was used mostly to support services targeting consumers. The 5G networks are expected to be the backbone of future businesses like self-driving cars and Internet of Things technology, where network stability is crucial to guaranteeing safety and security.

“The government should help ease some difficulties faced by the telecommunications industry and support investment in 5G,” Hwang added.

According to the Science Ministry, Hwang asked for tax benefits when setting up 5G network infrastructure to ease the burden on companies and the minister said he will consider the possible options.

SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho said the company is researching what changes 5G could bring to the world and added that he is particularly interested in 5G’s possible impact on the media industry.

LG U+ CEO Ha Hyun-hwoi, on his first full day on the job, showed up for the meeting. Though former CEO Kwon Young-soo was originally scheduled to take part, Ha said he decided to participate considering the importance of 5G business and to listen to the policy directions of the Science Ministry regarding the network.

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6 thoughts on “South Korean Mobile Operators to Launch 5G Simultaneously on Korea 5G Day

  1. SK Telecom’s 5G gaming festival starts today – 10 August 2018; Korea JoongAng Daily

    SK Telecom’s three-day festival dedicated to 5G networks’ impact on gaming kicks off today at Kintex in Goyang, Gyeonggi.

    The 5GX Game Festival comes as Korea’s mobile carriers, including SK Telecom, plan to launch their 5G networks next year.

    “We hope customers can feel the value of 5G networks through the 5GX Game Festival,” said Yoon Yong-cheol, head of the communications center at SK Telecom. “We will continue presenting the future created by 5G.”

    At SK’s Oksusu social VR experience zone, visitors can wear virtual reality headsets offered on site and enter a virtual space to view e-sports together with their friends. Oksusu is SK Telecom’s video streaming app, and the carrier is set to add a social community feature to the app by the end of this year so that users from around the world can socialize in a virtual space.

    Visitors can play games as well as watch them. Wearing a VR headset and walking on a 360-degree treadmill invented specifically for VR gaming, visitors can enjoy the Ready Player One VR game, staging a battle in a virtual space, getting attacked by zombies and doing a parachute jump to invade enemy territory. Visitors may also play popular games such as League of Legends, Battleground and FIFA on wireless 5G networks so they can feel the ultra-high speed and low latency of the new network.

    The festival will connect an open e-sport competition site with an exhibition hall, both inside the festival venue, so that viewers can feel the atmosphere of the competition live. The exhibition hall will be equipped with VR devices and 5G tablet PCs.

    BY SEO JI-EUN [[email protected]]

  2. KT demos 5G-powered unmanned airship with Samsung in India
    Sunday 28 October 2018 | 13:10 CET | News
    South Korean operator KT has demonstrated an unmanned airship using 5G technology at the India Mobile Congress (IMC), Yonhap news agency reports. The airship, dubbed ‘Skyship’, is equipped with 5G customer premises equipment (CPE) made by Samsung Electronics and an advanced high-resolution camera that can shoot 360-degree photos and videos, KT said. The filmed videos were sent through KT’s 5G network in real-time to a monitor at Samsung’s booth at the IMC 2018 in New Delhi.
    “The Skyship platform is KT’s distinct solution that integrates the company’s network infrastructure and ICT technology”, said Oh Seong-mok, president of the network business at KT. “KT plans to expand the application of Skyship to different areas”, he added.

    Back in June, KT utilized Skyship with an emergency network service platform for search and rescue operations. Once the airship picks up a signal from a survivor, the platform deploys smaller drones that deliver emergency kits and supplies before rescue personnel can be dispatched.

    https://www.telecompaper.com/news/kt-demos-5g-powered-unmanned-airship-with-samsung-in-india–1266734

  3. South Korea’s LG Uplus has announced it expects to start transmitting its first 5G radio waves at the start of next month ahead of a planned commercial launch of its network early next year.

    The initial deployment will center on the Seoul metropolitan area and some other major cities, Business Korea reported.

    The operator is working with France’s Forsk, a radio wave design program company, to ensure an optimal 5G deployment.

    LG Uplus is using Forsk’s Atoll radio planning software to predict the movements of 5G radio waves, and is using ray tracing techniques to mitigate the unpredictability of radio waves transmitted using 5G’s beamforming capabilities.

    Cell design for the Seoul metropolitan area commenced in October last year and has now been completed, the report states.

    But the operator does not intend to launch commercial 5G services for smartphones until 2019. In July, LG Uplus and the other South Korean mobile operators agreed to launch 5G services on the same day, expected around March next year, in order to avoid excessive competition.

    https://www.telecomasia.net/content/lg-uplus-switch-first-5g-radio-waves-dec

  4. Asia-Pacific is already a test-bed for 5G. From early demonstrations at the Olympics and Commonwealth Games in South Korea and Australia, to innovation hubs exploring use cases like immersive entertainment and AI-based drones, Asian countries are already tinkering with 5G. Experts expect immediate impact in manufacturing first, and later in mass IoT, smart cities, and autonomous vehicles.

    Companies expect 5G within two to three years. The majority of companies (65 percent) across the six surveyed markets expect 5G to be launched by 2020, with 18 percent by 2021; fewer than 8 percent believe it will take as long as 2022. Some 47 percent believe 5G will boost efficiency, and 44 percent are discussing how their business will be affected. Fifty-one per cent are investing in technologies that can be deployed when 5G is launched.
    Regulatory reform, data security and organizational stasis are obstacles to digital transformation in the 5G era.

    The world over, the digital economy is outgrowing regulatory frameworks in areas like monopoly, tax, privacy, and security. Clear, robust rules are needed to put digital innovation on a sound footing as 5G intensifies challenges like data privacy. Companies also need to overcome internal hurdles; lack of organizational agility and slow pace of change is voted a top obstacle by 38 percent of firms.

    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612405/from-follower-to-leader-digital-transformation-and-the-road-to-5g-in-southern-asia-pacific/

  5. UPDATE: South Korea 5G Launch date now April 5th

    The South Korean government, hardware and wireless carriers joined forces to move up the commercial launching date to April 5th.

    A high-ranking government official said that South Korea’s 5G service launch will begin on April 5, 2019 as all stakeholders finally agreed on the adjusted schedule. Samsung Electronics announced on the same day it will ship 5G-enabled Galaxy S10 models to the country’s wireless carriers without pre-order sales starting April 5, while telecos are preparing to roll out their 5G service plans that cost 50,000 to 70,000 won ($62) per month, about half the price planned by Verizon. The Korean government decided to open Korea 5G Day on the same date to celebrate the launch.

    https://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2019&no=173830

  6. South Korea:

    The Republic of (South) Korea announced for the goal of the world’s first commercialization in February 2018 and finished auction for 5G Spectrum in Jun. 2018 and certified 5G base station equipment in September 2018 and launched 5G service using mobile routers first in December 2018.
    The new milestone of 1 million 5G subscribers was reached on 10th June 2019, 69 days after Korea became the first country in the world to officially launch 5G commercial services on April 3, 2019.

    Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced the 3rd plan (from 2019 to 2023) on January 25, 2019. The master plan for radio waves promotion is mid- and long-term spectrum policy for every 5 years. The potential additional candidate bands for 5G are divided into two parts, below 6 GHz bands and above 24 GHz bands.

    (Band below 6 GHz)
    – 2 300 2 390 MHz (former WiBro service band)
    – Adjacent band(s) with the 3.5 GHz band (e.g. 3.4-3.42 GHz and 3.7-4.2 GHz, portions thereof)
    – Portion(s) of 1 452 1 492 MHz band
    – If necessary, prepare supplementary supply plan such as 700 MHz and 2.5 GHz band etc.
    (Band above 24 GHz) To secure additional 2 GHz bandwidth, Korea is considering the availability of equipment/terminals and WRC-19 results
    Table Planned schedule
    ‘19 ‘20 ‘21 ‘22 ‘23
    5G Allocation 2.3 GHz band Adjacent band(s) with 3.5 GHz band 1.4 GHz band Bands above 24 GHz
    Re-allocation
    (2G-4G) Existing bands

    5G+ Strategy
    MSIT and nine other related ministries jointly announced the “5G+ strategy” at the “Korean 5G Tech-Concert” on April 8.
    The vision of 5G+ strategy is realization of innovative growth through 5G+ and the goal is achieving 180 trillion won in the production of 5G+ strategic industry by 2026 (15% of the global market share)
    The Korean government is planning to foster 15 5G-based “strategic industries” to create 600 000 jobs and export $73 billion worth of goods and services by 2026.

    The 15 industries consist of five “Key services” and 10 “Key industries”. The five key services include immersive content, smart factory, autonomous vehicles, smart city and digital health care, while the 10 key industries include network device, next-generation smart phone, AR·VR Device, wearable device, intelligent CCTV, future drone, connected robot, 5G V2X, information security and edge computing.
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    5G frequency allocation in Japan:
    Toward the launch of 5G in 2020, MIC (Ministry of Internal affairs and Communications) allocated frequency for 4 operators.
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    China (People’s Republic of):

    On 6th June, MIIT of China issued 5G commercial licenses to four major operators, which are China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Broadcasting Network.

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