As a pioneer in the global development of 5G networks, South Korea began its promotion journey of “the world’s first and best 5G” after successfully showcasing the world’s first 5G experimental network during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. However, seven years later today, due to complaints from many South Korean users about incomplete signal coverage, fast battery consumption, and actual transmission speeds not meeting expectations, they have abandoned the use of 5G networks and returned to 4G networks.
The initial claim by South Korean mobile operators that 5G transmission rates were 20 times faster than 4G was not fully realized. Resulting in many people switching back from 5G to 4G services. The main reason is that users are dissatisfied with the poor quality, insufficient coverage, and high fees of 5G.
Currently, the coverage of 5G networks in major cities such as Seoul is incomplete, with operators overly pursuing construction speed and neglecting indoor network coverage, resulting in poor overall user experience. Some users have provided feedback that the current coverage of 5G networks in South Korea is relatively small, and the stability of connections also needs to be improved.
It is reported that the minimum monthly rent for a 5G package in South Korea is 64000 Korean won, while the price for a 4G package is only 41000 Korean won and has more data. At the same time, when Korean operators promote 5G, they emphasize that the theoretical speed of 5G can reach 10Gbps, but in actual use, the highest speed for consumers is only 800Mbps. 5G also faces problems such as unstable signals and poor latency, leading many consumers to give up.
Indeed, the coverage area of South Korea’s 5G communication network is relatively small, which limits the widespread use of users. At present, the density of 5G base stations built by South Korean operators is too low. China has built over 2.3 million 5G base stations, accounting for more than 60% of the global 5G base stations. The 5G base stations built in South Korea are far from reaching the expected density, and the wireless data transmission rate is naturally difficult to meet expectations.
Compared with China, which has built more than 4.7 million 5G base stations, South Korea has only 230000 5G base stations, which leads to the poor 5G network in South Korea. So far, many South Koreans’ understanding of mobile Internet still stays at 4G. Due to the poor network quality, which has greatly affected the development of mobile Internet in South Korea, South Korea lags behind China in many fields such as electronic payment, mobile e-commerce and short video services.
The situation of users abandoning 5G in South Korea is similar to the French’s previous request to delay the use of 5G. At that time, more than 70 left-wing activists and environmentalists jointly called on the French government to postpone the deployment of 5G. 67% of French people supported delaying the deployment of 5G. Their reason is that the use of 5G will exacerbate France’s digital divide. French critics of 5G advocate for expanding 4G coverage instead of launching 5G primarily benefiting big cities.
The peculiar move of Koreans and French to abandon 5G is difficult for us to understand. Nowadays, 5G has been commercialized and the number of 5G users is also increasing significantly. In such a situation, why are many users preparing to give up 5G and choose to return to 4G? What have they experienced?
Perhaps in their view, there are too many drawbacks to 5G smartphones. Due to the immaturity of 5G, the 5G phones currently available on the market are actually “test products”, which contain many internal defects such as power consumption, heat generation, and so on. Although some aspects of 5G are indeed much better than 4G, the time from research and development to production and manufacturing of 5G is only a few years. In such a short period of time, it is difficult to fully explore such a behemoth.
It seems that some Koreans have abandoned the use of 5G and switched back to 4G, which is unbelievable and only indicates that they are still immersed in the past and even want to go back to it. Although South Korea has encountered some problems in promoting 5G networks, in today’s world, it is difficult to establish a foothold with primitive or ancient lifestyles. Technological innovation is the king of the future world. 5G network technology is expected to achieve exponential leap in wireless data transmission, so as to achieve progress in autonomous vehicle, virtual reality technology (VR), and Internet health technology.
For China, it is not necessarily a bad thing that most Koreans do not use 5G, and even in strategic competition, it may be advantageous for China, which could greatly help change the strategic landscape. Why can’t Korean cars do smart driving well now? If the basic network environment is not good, how can we understand smart driving? As a result, the era of intelligence is the era of China.
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