The country’s three carriers plan to launch commercial 5G services in March 2019
South Korea’s three mobile operators have agreed to launch commercial 5G services at the same time to avoid unnecessary competition, local press reported.
At a meeting with the heads of SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus in Seoul on July 17, Minister of Science and ICT Yoo Young-min confirmed the telcos aim to begin commercial 5G services in March 2019.
“It is important for mobile carriers to avoid heated competition for the title of world‘s ‘first’ 5G service provider in order for Korea to become a nation that can commercialize the 5G service for the first time in the world,” Yoo said.
The Ministry of Science and ICT has also announced that it will provide tax benefits and security maintenance services to SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus.
The three operators plan to choose their subcontractors by next month to begin building related network infrastructure from September. Commercial 5G trials are expected to be launched in December.
Earlier this month, South Korean firm Samsung announced that it will have both 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz hardware ready in time for South Korea’s upcoming launch of next-generation 5G networks.
Last month, South Korea has completed a tender process through which it awarded spectrum in both the 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz bands for 5G services. The government made available a total of 280 megahertz in the 3.5 GHz spectrum band and 2,400 megahertz in the 28 GHz band. The spectrum was divided into 28 blocks and 24 blocks.
Participant operators SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus had a 10 block cap per spectrum band.
The telcos paid a total of 3.6183 trillion won ($3.3 billion) for the spectrum, 340 billion won higher than the starting price of 3.3 trillion won.
In the 3.5 GHz range, SK Telecom paid nearly 1.22 trillion won ($1.1 billion) for 100 megahertz of spectrum, with KT paying 968 billion won ($870 million) for the same amount. LG Uplus acquired an 80 megaherz license in this range for about 810 billion won ($728 million).
In the 28 GHz segment, each operator secured 800 megahertz, paying between 207 billion won ($186 million) and 208 billion won ($187 million) for its license.
South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT confirmed that operators can start using the 5G frequencies in December, with the 3.5 GHz band licenses covering a ten-year period and the 28 GHz band licenses a five-year term.
In April this year, the three mobile operators announced plans to share the costs for the deployment of a nationwide 5G network in the Asian nation. The initiative reportedly will be carried out by SK Telecom, KT, LG Uplus as well as broadband operator SK Broadband. This shared infrastructure projects had the main aim of avoiding redundant investment in 5G deployments, according to government officials. The initiative is expected to generate savings of nearly 1 trillion won over the next ten next years.
