Who Is the World’s First 5G? South Korea and US Launched 5G in April 2019

There’s a battle of who’s the world’s first 5G. On 4 April 2019, Korea’s three carriers, SK Telecom, KT and LG, announced that 6 celebrities, including an Olympic figure skater and K-pop singers had used Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S10 5G smartphones on Wednesday night. Same day within hours, Verizon launched 5G on parts of Chicago and Minneapolis through Motorola’s Moto Z3 smartphone with its 5G modem.

Both Korea and US battled for the leading position in the 5G market. General public in South Korea are able to connect to 5G services on 5April 2019 when Samsung starts selling Galaxy S10 5G. The US giant firms planned to provide the new service in more than 30 locations in the country by the end of 2019. Japan’s mobile carriers planned to have a full 5G launch by 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

According to the estimation from the Global System for Mobile Communications in London, the economic benefits from 5G among the 5G countries would be around US$565 billion by 2034. So, it is a large global business influencing the economic growth as well.