South Korea Proves Its 5G Deployment Mettle

5G is quickly gaining momentum in South Korea. KT Corp., the nation’s largest wireless operator, claims to have launched the “world’s first nationwide commercial 5G wireless network” with enterprises and consumers now actively using the network.  The operator also says it is the first to offer unlimited data plans for 5G services. KT’s deployments began in November 2018. The network now covers the country’s most populated areas, including Seoul, six other metropolitan cities, most of the 85 major cities, 70 shopping malls, and 464 college campuses. Mobile edge computing (MEC) centers in eight major cities are supporting low latency, providing a more reliable service, and improving device batter life by about 25%, according to KT. Samsung’s Leading Role KT isn’t the only South Korean operator with live 5G service. SK Telecom and LG Uplus have also deployed services in the past couple months. And while Samsung isn’t the exclusive 5G vendor in the country, this week it claimed to have deployed the largest share of network equipment to date. Samsung says it has supplied more than 53,000 radio base stations to all three operators.