5G Mobile Technologies

[Anchor Lead]

The era of 5G mobile technologies has officially begun in Korea. Technologies such as like virtual reality and ultra-connectivity, which could only be seen in sci-fi movies so far, are gradually becoming a reality.

[Pkg]

A man on the street looks at his smartphone. He can have an uninterrupted view of picture-perfect images of the buildings behind him. A dragon makes a surprise appearance at a baseball stadium, adding even more entertainment to the sports game. With the LTE gadgets, it took eight
seconds to download a two-hour high-resolution movie, but 5G devices can do it in just 0.4 seconds, or up to 20 times faster. The launch of 5G services has ushered in the era of ultra-connectivity. Virtual reality and autonomous driving cars are gradually becoming a part of people's daily lives. However, there is not enough 5G content yet. It is mostly limited to games and sports. Affordability is another problem. The nation's three mobile service providers offer 5G services for around 80,000 won a month. It takes 25GB of data to watch one hour of virtual reality videos. This means that the lowest fee of 55,000 won is only enough to watch VR videos for roughly 20 minutes.

[Soundbite] An Jin-keol(People's Livelihood Economy Research Institute) : "The 5G service is being marketed with gadgets and fees without a full guarantee of its speed to lure customers."

Korea has been keen on developing the world's first 5G technology, but now it faces another challenge of making it the best in the world.