South Korea first in the world to roll out commercial 5G services

South Korea will become the first country to commercially launch fifth-generation (5G) services on Friday (April 5) as it rolls out the latest wireless technology with Samsung Electronics' new 5G-enabled smartphone Galaxy S10.

With one of the world's top smartphone penetration rates, South Korea is in a race with China, the United States and Japan to market 5G, hoping the technology will spur breakthrough in fields such as smart cities and autonomous cars, and drive up its economic growth that slowed to a six-year low in 2018.

"It is meaningful that South Korean telecom companies are providing services and networks meeting South Korean customers' high standard in speed and picture quality," Ryu Young-sang, executive vice president at the country's top mobile carrier SK Telecom, said on Wednesday.

5G will change the landscape of the gaming industry as it allows games streamed with minimal delay to be played on smartphones, Ryu added.

The technology can offer 20-times faster data speeds than 4G long-term evolution (LTE) networks and better support for artificial intelligence and virtual reality with low latency.

Sometimes it can offer up to 100-times faster speeds.

South Korean carriers have spent billions on campaigns marketing 5G and, on Wednesday, SK Telecom showed off K-pop stars and an Olympic gold medallist as its first 5G customers.

SK Telecom is working with its memory-chip making affiliate SK Hynix to build a highly digitised and connected factory powered by 5G technology, Ryu said.

The operator expects about 1 million 5G customers by end-2019. It has a total of 27 million users.

Smaller rival KT Corp is set to offer cheaper plans than its LTE service, with unlimited data and 4-year instalments to buy 5G devices.

Samsung was the first to unwrap a 5G phone in February when it unveiled the Galaxy S10 5G and a nearly US$2,000 (S$2,706) folding smartphone, putting the world's top smartphone maker by volume in pole position in the 5G race, some analysts say.

Smaller local rival LG Electronics plans to release its 5G smartphone in South Korea later this month.

In the United States, carrier Verizon plans to launch its 5G network in two cities on April 11.

While security concerns over 5G networks using telecom equipment made by China's Huawei have marred the buildup to the release of these services, South Korean telcos have tried to shrug them off.

"I don't think we have a security issue in South Korea,"Park Jin-hyo, head of SK Telecom's information and communication tech research centre, told reporters.

He added that the company uses advanced technology to block eavesdropping or hacking into 5G networks.

Among South Korea's top three telecom operators, SK Telecom and KT Corp do not use Huawei equipment for 5G. Smaller carrier LG Uplus uses Huawei gear.

But SK Telecom officials said it was likely there will be an open auction for network equipment makers including Huawei if South Korea needs more base stations for higher frequencies.