The South Korean government aims to award the first 5G licenses on 15 June
South Korean mobile operators SK Telecom, KT and LG U+ have applied for the country’s first auction for 5G spectrum, local news agency Yonhap reports, citing a statement from the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT.
SK Telecom, KT and LG U+ have submitted their application documents for the auction on June 4.
The government of South Korea aims to award spectrum for the provision of 5G services on June 15. The ministry will now review the documents and announce the shortlist of qualified bidders on June 8. Industry insiders expect the three telecom operators to pass the evaluation process, according to the report.
The three carriers will compete for 28 blocks of spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band and 24 blocks in the 28 GHz band.
The government had previously confirmed that minimum bidding price for the 3.5 GHz blocks will be 2.65 trillion won ($2.46 billion), while for the 28 GHz blocks bidding will start at 621.6 billion won ($578 million). In 2016, the opening price for the 4G spectrum auction was set at 2.6 trillion won.
Operators can start using the 5G frequencies in December, with the 3.5 GHz band covering a ten-year period and the 28 GHz band a five-year term.
In April this year, the three mobile operators had 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 U+ 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.
South Korean mobile operators are expected to invest more than $9.3 billion in 5G network technology in 2018, according to previous reports from Korean press. According to the reports, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the country’s three mobile carries – SK Telecom, KT Corp and LG U+ – have plans to start commercial operations in 2019 and build nationwide infrastructure by 2020.
In January, SK Telecom confirmed it had formed a 200-member task force in order to speed up the process to launch commercial 5G services in the Asian country. SK Telecom said the task force is making all the necessary efforts to launch this technology as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, KT recently confirmed plans to launch its commercial 5G network by March 2019. The operator said that its 5G rollout will not be based on the Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) model currently being pushed forward by U.S telco Verizon. The country’s second largest telco has recently completed a 5G trial during the Winter Olympics Games, which took place in the city of PyeongChang February 9-25.
LG U+ has been also active in the 5G field. In November 2017, the telco signed a partnership with Chinese vendor Huawei to complete a large-scale 5G network test in a pre-commercial environment in Gangnam District, Seoul. The vendor said this network consists of both 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz base stations.
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