South Korea is one of those countries with the speediest internet connection.
With around 28.6 Mbit/s speed (2017), the country has the world's fastest average internet connection speed, and has consistently ranked the first in the UN ICT Development Index since the index's launch.
As the world is anticipating the age of commercial 5G, the South Korean network provider SK Telecom made the world’s first commercial 5G video call: the company's CEO Park Jung-ho made a video call from the mobile operator’s network control center in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, to a staff manager in the company’s Myeong-dong office in central Seoul, using a prototype Samsung 5G phone.
He said that the call quality is clearer than a video call made via LTE.
"I feel deeply moved by this first video call on a 5G smartphone," Park said. "It was much clearer than on LTE and the response was quick."
More calls were subsequently made to Haeundae in Busan, Dunsan-dong in Daejeon and Geumnam-ro in Gwangju, The company said that it has deployed 5G infrastructure in Seoul and six other metropolitan cities across the country, including at Jeju, Ulleungdo and Dokdo.
The SK Telecom tower’s guide robot called Lota, is its first client that uses 5G service that provides 10 gigabytes of data at 49,500 won ($44.20) per month.
“We chose Lota as our first 5G client in order to highlight that 5G doesn’t just mean a replacement of the mobile network,” a company official said. “5G robot Lota will be a platform that innovates our daily lives and industries altogether.”
Other client, Myunghwa Ind, uses this 5G connection for its AI machine vision solution that collects and sends 24 high-definition photos from the production line to a cloud server, where they are analyzed for defects.
SK Telecom's self-driving car initiative had also tested this connection in Hwaseong and ordinary roads in Siheung as it was communicating with the company's 5G control center.
Despite a fire from its branch in northern district in Seoul and subsequent network blackout in the prior week, SK Telecom celebrated its commercial 5G launch at the 123-floor Lotte World Tower in Jamsil, southern Seoul.
Samsung‘s mobile head, DJ Koh, said that the company is working closely with SK Telecom for providing this commercial 5G services, as the Korean phone maker is aiming to release its first 5G-enabled phone in 2019.
Apart from SK Telecom, others like KT and LG Uplus have also launched commercial 5G networks in South Korea. But at the moment SK Telecom started its 5G video call, the two's services are only limited to enterprise customers.
Chinese smartphone maker OPPO also said to have successfully completed a multi-party video call on a smartphone via 5G network using WeChat. The video call was made on an OPPO R15 Pro-based 5G smartphone and lasted for more than 17 minutes on a 5G network with a bandwidth of 100MHz.
