5G Services to Be Available on Subways in Major Cities Starting August

5G mobile services will be available on subways in major cities in Korea.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the three mobile carriers announced on July 23 that they have completed the construction of 5G networks on subways in Seoul (Lines 2 and 9) and other metropolitan cities including Gwangju, Daegu, Daejeon and Busan.

In Seoul, 5G access will be available on Subway Line 2 starting August. For the remaining lines, 5G networks will be sequentially established by the middle of 2021.

Jang Seok-young, the second vice minister of science and ICT, visited Euljiro Entrance Subway Station in Seoul on July 23 to check the quality of 5G services, including 5G connections. Jang also measured the download speed at the site. The download speed of the 5G service hit 1,355 Mbps, three times higher than that of 4G LTE services at the site.

SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus teamed up in January to jointly establish 5G networks on subways. The project was tough because engineers could work for only two to three hours a day at dawn when subway trains were not running.

The three mobile carriers said that they were expanding 5G infrastructure in areas with heavy foot traffic, major highways, airports, and buildings and planning to accelerate the installation of national networks.