South Korea has announced that it is moving forward with a plan to develop a nationwide 5G wireless network that will make 4G look like it's moving in slow motion. According to the country's science ministry, the next-generation network, which it hopes to make commercially available by 2020, would be 1,000 times faster than current 4G networks. With speeds that fast, users would be able to download a full-length, high-definition movie in seconds.
The plan, however, is going to require some serious investing on South Korea's part. According to an AFP report posted to Business Insider, the network and related infrastructure will cost the country roughly $1.5 billion. The move is also said to give priority to developing next-generation Ultra HD video and hologram transmission.
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South Korea isn't simply undertaking this effort to provide its citizens with a faster means to download movies and play online games without lag. The ultimate goal is to turn South Korea into the world's preeminent provider of 5G technologies. To do that, the country is enlisting the help of its SK Telecom and Korea Telecom, as well as Samsung and LG.
This isn't the first time the term 5G has been bandied about. Samsung previously announced that it had tested a 5G connection in its own labs, reaching a data rate of 1Gbps using the 28-GHz frequency band. That said, the test required 64 antenna elements to work and was only possible under controlled conditions. Last year, the Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo tested a 5G connection that reached 10 Gbps.
Here in the U.S., two of the Big Four carriers, Sprint and T-Mobile, are still building out their 4G LTE networks. Verizon, on the other hand, is in the midst of developing its own 4G LTE AWS network, which promises to double the carrier's current data speeds. Future networks running LTE Advanced could top out at around 150 Mbps.
via: Business Insider
