The Promise & the Reality
When it comes to telecommunications, South Korea is near the top of the list. The country adopted 2G in 1996, a bit earlier than in the US, followed in 2003 by the adoption of 3G, and was the first country to adopt 4G in late 2009. 5G however, was more of a promise, and while South Korea was still among the earliest, it seems that expectations for 5G across the country have not been met. When 5G was promoted, ahead of its official release in South Korea, both the government and the country’s three telcos set consumer anticipation with a number of promises for 5G that included speeds of 20x that of 4G, 10x lower latency, and 100x better access. These were lofty goals, but coming from a country that has led the way for telecommunication progress, such were not impossible.
Moving ahead to the current day, the scorecard on those promises leaves a bit to be desired. The average 5G download speed in South Korea (October ’22) is 896.1 Mbps, and to put that in perspective, it is 5.9x the average for 4G across the country. The upload speed average is 93.16 Mbps, only 2.8x that for 4G. 4G latency in South Korea averages ~47ms, which would imply 5G should be under 5ms, which unfortunately is not the case, as it averages ~23ms, although that is a substantial improvement. However things come apart a bit more when it comes to coverage, which is currently ~33.1%, a bit less than the 100x promised, although with over 99% of the country having 4G availability, the promised improvement was destined to fail from the start, and most of the 5G installations in South Korea are piggybacked on 4G infrastructure and are not standalone 5G installs.
One additional problem that faces the 5G promises made by South Korean telcos is that two of the three carrier in the country have already had their licenses for 28Ghz (mmWave) rescinded, and the third is expected to lose its license for mmWave by the end of the year. As none of the telcos (nor the government itself) supporting mmWave, the speed boost that would come from averaging in mmWave does not look like it will happen anytime in the near future, which means the incremental speed improvements originally promised will likely not happen in the near-term (or mid-term).
While relative to US telcos, who are always in a ‘battle of promises’ that never quite materialize, South Korea’s reputation for telecommunication innovation would have suggested a better outcome thus far, and while the South Korean government was a willing participant in promising subscribers the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the South Korean Fair Trade Commission is considering penalizing the three telcos for violating the country’s advertising laws for not living up to their own expectations.
Moving ahead to the current day, the scorecard on those promises leaves a bit to be desired. The average 5G download speed in South Korea (October ’22) is 896.1 Mbps, and to put that in perspective, it is 5.9x the average for 4G across the country. The upload speed average is 93.16 Mbps, only 2.8x that for 4G. 4G latency in South Korea averages ~47ms, which would imply 5G should be under 5ms, which unfortunately is not the case, as it averages ~23ms, although that is a substantial improvement. However things come apart a bit more when it comes to coverage, which is currently ~33.1%, a bit less than the 100x promised, although with over 99% of the country having 4G availability, the promised improvement was destined to fail from the start, and most of the 5G installations in South Korea are piggybacked on 4G infrastructure and are not standalone 5G installs.
One additional problem that faces the 5G promises made by South Korean telcos is that two of the three carrier in the country have already had their licenses for 28Ghz (mmWave) rescinded, and the third is expected to lose its license for mmWave by the end of the year. As none of the telcos (nor the government itself) supporting mmWave, the speed boost that would come from averaging in mmWave does not look like it will happen anytime in the near future, which means the incremental speed improvements originally promised will likely not happen in the near-term (or mid-term).
While relative to US telcos, who are always in a ‘battle of promises’ that never quite materialize, South Korea’s reputation for telecommunication innovation would have suggested a better outcome thus far, and while the South Korean government was a willing participant in promising subscribers the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the South Korean Fair Trade Commission is considering penalizing the three telcos for violating the country’s advertising laws for not living up to their own expectations.
RSS Feed