Korean government to cancel 28 GHz spectrum allocations

The South Korean government said it will cancel the spectrum licenses in the 28 GHz band that was allocated to local operators for 5G deployments, citing the lack of investment and missed rollout requirements.

Once this measure is fully implemented by the government, local operators KT and LG Uplus will lose the right to use the 28 GHz frequencies they had won in a spectrum auction in 2018. Meanwhile, South Korea’s largest mobile operator, SK Telecom, will have its use time of the 28 GHz spectrum reduced by six months. It will also lose the right to use the spectrum completely if it fails to deploy 15,000 radio stations that use the spectrum by the end of May 2023.

The Ministry of Science and ICT noted that the decision was made because local carriers failed to deploy the 28 GHz radio stations across the country that were required as part of the licensing.

The three operators had secured frequencies in the 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz bands in 2018, under the condition that they each deploy 22,500 and 15,000 radio stations for each spectrum band.

The government noted that telcos had fulfilled with the stipulated number of radio stations for the 3.5GHz spectrum but all failed to reach the deployment goal for the 28GHz frequencies.

The decision by the ministry will be finalized in a hearing next month when the operators will be forced to shut down the network infrastructure currently using 28GHz spectrum, according to the reports.

Local news agency Yonhap also reported that the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to allocate the 3.7-4.0 GHz band frequency to local telecommunication operators next year.

In June 2018, the ICT ministry completed an auction for 5G frequencies in which local carriers SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus secured spectrum to launch 5G services in the Asian nation. SK Telecom and KT each won 100 megahertz in the 3.5 GHz band while LG Uplus had obtained a bloc of 80 megahertz of spectrum. In July 2022, LG Uplus secured an additional 20 megahertz of spectrum to use for 5G.

South Korea ended July with 25.1 million subscribers in the 5G segment, according to data from the Ministry of Science and ICT.

5G accounted for 33.3% of all mobile subscriptions in the country as of the end of July. However, the technology accounted for 72.4% of the overall online traffic.

Meanwhile, 4G LTE accounted for 62.5% of all mobile subscriptions in South Korea and 27.6% in terms of overall online traffic.

The ministry also reported that 5G subscribers used an average of 27.9 GB of traffic in July, while LTE subscribers used 8.4 GB.

South Korea was the first country to launch commercial 5G networks in April 2019 and currently has 5G coverage across its 85 cities.