The Ministry of Science and ICT improved 74 out of 79 areas with poor telecommunication service quality, but five areas still remained unimproved.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced that as a result of re-examining whether quality had improved in 79 areas with insufficient quality identified in the 2022 telecommunication service quality evaluation for administrative districts, multi-use facilities, subways, and high-speed railways, 5G quality had improved in all areas, and LTE quality had improved in 54 areas.

However, the quality of LTE service in transportation infrastructure still remains underdeveloped.

5G service quality has improved across all 20 poor quality areas. LTE quality improved in 54 out of 50 locations.

By operator, SKT improved 2 5G and 6 LTE locations, KT improved 12 5G and 15 LTE locations, and LG U+ improved 9 5G locations, but 5 out of 50 LTE service locations were confirmed to have not been improved.

All major unimproved areas are subways and high-speed rail, and the major sections are: △Seoul Metropolitan Area Line 2 Hongik University Station-Sindorim △Seoul Metropolitan Area Line 3 Sinsa-Yaksu, Bulkwang-Samsong △Seoul Metropolitan Area Line 4 Ansan-Handeup △KTX Gyeongbu Line Gwangmyeong-Cheonan-Asan, etc.

Meanwhile, LG Uplus' sales in the first quarter of 2023 decreased by 0.4% year-on-year to KRW 260.2 billion in operating profit and KRW 155.1 billion in net profit, respectively. LG Uplus explained that this was due to CAPEX costs focused on strengthening DDoS protection and information protection and investing in 5G wired and wireless networks.

Kim Kyung-man, the Ministry of Science and ICT's communications policy officer, said, "It appears that efforts have been made to improve quality, such as by improving all areas where 5G service was inadequate, but it is very unfortunate that there are still some areas where LTE service has not been improved," and emphasized, "We will re-examine the five areas confirmed as under-improved in the communications service quality evaluation in the second half of the year and continuously encourage quality improvement."