In the middle of last year, we heard that Samsung had uncovered the technology required to achieve 5G network speeds, alleged to be a hundred times faster than existing 4G LTE networks. While researching the technology is one thing, actually building a mobile network capable of 5G speeds is quite another thing. Naturally then, one of the first countries to attempt building such a network would inevitably be South Korea, home to one of the world’s first LTE-Advanced networks.
To do this, it’s going to require the teaming up of South Korea’s greatest telecommunications giants including Samsung, LG, Korea Telecom and SK Telecom to build the network which is planned to be one thousand times faster than 4G networks. Yes, you read that right: one thousand. This would allow the network to top out at 1Gbps and achieve downloading feats such as downloading a 800MB movie in just a second. It almost sounds too good to be true, or at least, cost a trillion dollars to develop and finish. Actually, it’s a little closer to 1.6 trillion. 1.6 trillion won to be exact, or around $1.4 billion USD, and the planned finish date of the network is in 2020, with a trial service to occur prior to that in 2017.
It’s noteworthy to mention that South Korea isn’t the only country working on a 5G network at the moment either; Huawei is using its network expertise to develop its network in China and NTT Docomo is doing the same in its native Japan. At this point, it looks like a race to the finish, but at the end of the day, when 5G is commonplace, we all win.
Can you wrap your head around how fast 5G mobile internet is going to be? Let us know what you think about 5G.
Source: Yonhap News via CNET Australia
