Samsung Electronics and KT Corp., formerly Korea Telecom, have successfully achieved 1 Gbps speed over the air on KT’s 5G commercial network.
KT has been testing its 5G commercial network and is using Ericsson for its nationwide launch of commercial 5G services for a launch date as early as April.
To achieve the 1 Gbps speed, KT used its 5G commercial network with 3.5 GHz frequency, which was deployed in Seoul and comprised of Samsung’s 5G New Radio (NR) end-to-end networks solutions. The Samsung solutions include a 5G radio and virtual core supporting both 4G LTE and 5G simultaneously and Samsung’s 5G S10 smartphone, which was introduced earlier this year.
The goal of the over-the-air test is to show that the network is ready to deliver gigabit speeds for use in advance of 5G commercialization, which could come as soon as April. KT plans to provide 5G network service for users in 85 cities nationwide including the Seoul metropolitan area. The 5G service coverage will include a number of major national highway and high-speed railways and will gradually cover 464 colleges and universities, subways, landmark buildings and parts of mountainous areas.
KT has been working with Samsung since November 2018 to jointly build the 5G commercial network and have been focused on optimizing the 5G network for both wider coverage and data traffic derived by 5G’s higher speed.
Previous tests for 5G between the two companies include delivering 5G pilot services during the winter sports games, testing devices that use the 28 GHz frequency, conducting a live video call on Samsung’s 5G network and an interoperability test using both 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz, respectively.
