The South Korean government announced on Friday that it would cancel spectrum that had been allocated to local telecom operators for their 5G rollout, citing their lack of investment in the sector.
Due to this unprecedented measure, KT and LG Uplus will lose their right to use the 28 GHz spectrum they won at an auction in 2018.
SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest mobile operator, will see its spectrum usage time reduced by six months. It will also lose the right to use the spectrum completely unless it builds all 15,000 radio stations using the spectrum by the end of next May.
Insufficient number of radio stations
South Korea’s technology ministry, behind the decision, says operators have not built the agreed number of 28 GHz radio stations they promised in 2018.
SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus won the right to use the 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz frequencies in 2018, on the condition of building 22,500 and 15,000 radio stations respectively for each frequency.
In a review by the ministry last April, operators all met the minimum requirements for 3.5 GHz spectrum, but all failed for 28 GHz spectrum.
Make way for foreign operators and new entrants
In its Friday statement, the ministry said the government has continuously encouraged the three operators to build more radio stations for the 28 GHz spectrum, but the companies have failed to comply. Operators failed to even build the minimum number of 28 GHz radio stations and offered no spectrum-enabled smartphones to consumers.
The ministry says that while the 28 GHz band has a narrower coverage area, it can be used to distribute traffic in densely populated areas and is necessary for the development of new services like virtual and augmented reality. On the other hand, foreign operators, particularly those in the United States and Japan, are actively developing the construction of their 28 GHz network, he underlines.
The ministry then added that it would encourage new operators to enter the sector, while promoting greater competition among existing telecom operators through various policies such as granting spectrum rights to a single operator.
Coaster
The ministry’s decision will be finalized at a hearing next month, during which operators will be forced to shut down their networks using the 28 GHz spectrum.
In 2019, the South Korean government and local telecom companies made a big deal of the rollout of 5G networks in April that year, claiming that their rollout was the first in the world.
But spending on local telcos’ 5G networks has gradually slowed over the years. The operators cited a lack of demand for the use of the 28 GHz spectrum and asserted that the market was not yet open.
Although both the 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz spectrums are used in 5G networks, some believe that the 28 GHz millimeter wave spectrum is the “real 5G” because it is the spectrum that offers a transfer rate of much higher data than the previous 4G LTE network. However, the ultra-high spectrum has a short range compared to the sub-6 GHz spectrum and is used with them to secure coverage.
Source: ZDNet.com