According the latest report by RootMetrics by IHS Markit, which compared 5G performance results in four major South Korean cities in the first half of 2021 - KT, LG Uplus and SK Telecom where at the forefront of the results.
In the case of LG Uplus, this is the third consecutive year that LG Uplus has maintained their position as a 5G industry leader. In addition, the report found that LG Uplus made the most efficient use of its spectrum, despite only having 80MHz of 5G bandwidth, which is less than that of KT and SK Telecom, with 100MHz each.
“5G is becoming the foundation of our connected communities and as important a piece of infrastructure as is water, roads, or electricity. We’ve tested performance in South Korea over many years,” said Patrick Linder, chief marketing officer at RootMetrics.
Our results continue to show that South Korean operators have taken a leading position in delivering the type of 5G experience that can help fuel new consumer and business activity. As 5G continues to expand across the globe, the implementation strategies and performance seen in South Korea have set an impressive standard for other operators to follow.”
RootMetrics considers LG Uplus in Seoul to be the best global 5G network based on the 5G report results from across four countries.
Specifically, LG Uplus in unmatched providing coverage in all scenarios, including outdoor, indoor, high-speed railway, metro, hot spots etc., with 95.2% 5G availability. This means that its network is provides ubiquitous 5G access, far ahead of cities like New York and London. In addition, it boasts the fastest 5G speeds with a median speed of 640.7Mbps.
Leveraging high-bandwidth massive MIMO, the deployment of 64TRx Massive MIMO at scale for outdoor scenarios and LampSite + distributed Massive MIMO for indoor scenarios to build "Everywhere" Massive MIMO, has won LG Uplus its leading position.
According to the report, the performance of KT and SK Telekon is also impressive. The 5G availability of the three operators has increased to over 93% and the median speed is over 461Mbps, which means end users can access the 5G network no matter their location.
Unsurprisingly South Korea is leading the way in 5G commercial deployment as well as a global 5G leader. According to the report, South Korea's 5G availability and user speed, are far ahead of most of the rest of the world.
