South Korea's 5G network to be fully rolled out by 2020, will allow entire movies to be downloaded in a second
What is at least 10 times faster than 4G LTE-Advanced? 5G, of course! The theoretic speeds that 5G can muster are still not even ironed out, though we're told to expect a peak of at least 10Gbps, even though Samsung only managed 1Gbps a while back, when testing the new tech. Of course, much of the world is still struggling to even get normal 4G LTE up and running, but that doesn't stop network pioneer South Korea from starting work on the new generation.
According to the country's science ministry, $1.5bn have already been invested into the vision of having theoretical down link high enough to pull a full-fledged movie in seconds. Referred to as the most-wired country in the world, South Korea has put its goals forth -- initial rollout, starting 2017, and a full rollout by 2020. The ambitious plan will obviously entail much more than just $1.5bn, but it's still impressive to see how forward-thinking the country is:
"We helped fuel national growth with 2G services in the 1990s, 3G in the 2000s and 4G around 2010. Now it is time to take preemptive action to develop 5G," said the science ministry in a statement. "Countries in Europe, China and the US are making aggressive efforts to develop 5G technology ... and we believe there will be fierce competition in this market in a few years."
The country's carriers and handset makers, including SK Telecom and Korea Telecom, and LG and Samsung, are all expected to cooperate with their own share of investment. Of course, while downing a 800-megabyte movie in just a second is mighty impressive compared to 40 seconds on 4G (according to the ministry's statement), it's still important to point out that such speeds don't necessarily reach consumers, as the bandwidth ceiling is just too low for hundreds of people to surf on such lightning-fast speeds.
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