The nationwide 5G communication service coverage area of the three mobile carriers has reached 75% of the country’s land area. The 5G download transmission speed averaged 939.14 Mbps for the three companies, up 4.8% from last year. Meanwhile, attention is being paid to whether additional allocation of the 3.7–3.72 GHz (20 MHz width) band, which SKT has been consistently requesting this year, will be made.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Intelligence Service (NIA) announced the results of the 2023 telecommunication service coverage inspection and quality evaluation on the 27th. This quality evaluation was conducted using the Samsung Electronics Galaxy S22 Ultra terminal for wireless Internet (5G, LTE, 3G, WiFi) and wired Internet (100 Mbps, 500 Mbps, 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps).

As of October 2023, the coverage area averaged 75,763.59㎢ for the three companies, reaching 75.25% of the national land area. The three mobile carriers have built 5G for subway stations and routes, high-speed railway stations and routes, and highway routes nationwide.

It was revealed that the three mobile carriers overstated their 5G coverage in an average of 2.7 legal districts (SKT 2, KT 2, LG U+ 4) out of 200 legal districts nationwide, but the rate at which terminals could stably connect to the 5G network in 180 major facilities was an average of 96.62% for the three mobile carriers. The lower the number, the weaker the 5G signal strength within key facilities.
According to the 5G service quality evaluation results, the 5G download transmission speed averaged 939.14 Mbps for the three companies, a 4.8% increase year-on-year. The speeds by carrier were SKT 987.54 Mbps, KT 948.88 Mbps, and LGU+ 881.00 Mbps. In particular, in major facilities such as densely populated areas, indoor facilities, and transportation facilities, the speed increased by 6.6% year-on-year to 961.24 Mbps.

In major transportation facilities, subways were faster than highways and high-speed railways, and large cities were faster than small and medium-sized cities and rural areas. In particular, the Seoul area averaged 1,092.62 Mbps for the three companies, a 15.7% increase year-on-year. SKT was at 1,101.37 Mbps, followed by LG U+ at 1,099.79 Mbps and KT at 1,076.71 Mbps. LG U+ saw its 5G speed improve by 21.9% year-on-year due to the additional allocation of 5G frequencies.

Among the 400 total inspection areas, the number of areas with poor 5G service quality with transmission speeds of 12 Mbps or less is 10.7 on average for the three companies: 10 for SKT, 9 for KT, and 13 for LG Uplus.

Meanwhile, the average download speed of the three LTE service providers increased by 17.8% year-on-year to 178.93 Mbps. The order is SKT (243.21 Mbps), LG U+ (122.28 Mbps), and KT (171.31 Mbps).

■ SKT to receive additional allocation for 3.7~4.72GHz band

Omdia predicts that 5G will have achieved 1.8 billion connections worldwide by the end of 2023, indicating that 5G has entered a stage of quantitative and qualitative maturity. According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, as of October 2023, the total number of domestic wireless communication service 5G subscribers was approximately 32.16 million, an increase of more than 5 million from approximately 26.98 million in 2022.

5G frequency bands include Sub-6GHz and mmWave (28GHz), and the theoretical maximum speed is up to 20Gbps for downlink (download) and up to 10Gbps for uplink. This is 10 times faster than 4G, but it corresponds to the mmWave high-frequency band, and the 5G that currently covers the entire country is adjacent to the 3.5GHz band.

SKT currently has the 3.60GHz to 3.70GHz band, KT has the 3.50GHz to 3.60GHz band, and LG U+ has the 3.40GHz to 3.50GHz band. LG U+ was allocated an additional 20MHz of bandwidth last year. Meanwhile, SKT has been consistently requesting additional allocation of the 3.70GHz to 3.72GHz (20MHz bandwidth) band since 2022.

Meanwhile, SKT has the largest number of 5G subscribers, but the allocated frequency bandwidth is the same, resulting in a low usable frequency per subscriber. In fact, LG U+ significantly improved its quality after being allocated an additional 20MHz bandwidth, allowing it to use a total of 100MHz bandwidth.

Therefore, if SKT is allocated an additional 20MHz of bandwidth, it is expected that SKT will be able to improve quality while maintaining the number of subscribers. However, from the perspective of KT and LG Uplus, it would be difficult to easily allow this as it would widen the gap in competition.

As part of measures to promote competition in the telecommunications market and ease the burden of telecommunications costs, the Ministry of Science and ICT should consider not only nationwide 5G coverage but also transmission speed when setting reasonable LTE/5G rates for users. In addition, it should focus on the impact of differential frequency allocation by operator on the telecommunications market competition structure and devise practical measures.

Kim Kyung-man, the Ministry of Science and ICT’s director general for communications policy, said, “Based on the 5G quality evaluation, we will request each telecommunications company to improve quality, re-examine whether improvements have been made, and urge telecommunications companies to gradually reduce the quality gap between large cities and rural areas.”