What Can Consumers and Businesses Do With 5G? Take a Look at South Korea

In Sangam-dong, a neighborhood in northwestern Seoul, a small number of autonomous cars shuttling passengers to select locations have begun commercial operations. Customers can use a mobile app to fetch the self-driving vehicles along a set route. Each ride costs 2,000 won ($1.63), though the first ride is free. For now, there are four vehicles in operation. More cars are planned for later this year, along with some autonomous buses.

The self-driving cars, developed by Seoul-based autonomous-driving startups 42dot and SWM, have a “safety driver” on board who mans the wheel when the cars pull over to pick up and drop off passengers, and in designated children’s safety zones, where cars must be hand-steered by law. The safety driver also can take over in case of emergencies, like a passenger getting sick and needing to get to a hospital. Passengers sit in the back seat, where they can track the car’s progress on the road on a virtual map in real time.

“Passengers initially get a bit scared about the self-driving, and then they think it’s very cool,” Kang Yong-gu, a safety driver for 42dot, said during a recent ride. It’s mostly been first-time riders who have been trying out the service, but some are becoming more regular riders, he said.

The autonomous cars depend on various sensor technologies, including cameras and radar, to detect obstacles on the roads and steer themselves accordingly. They know when to stop and go, thanks in part to communication with the surrounding transportation infrastructure, like stoplights fitted with sensors that send out data signals through ultrafast 5G networks.

“Through 5G, the vehicles can exchange data with the road infrastructure around them in a stable manner without lags,” says Kim Jin-goo, a manager in the traffic information division at the Seoul Metropolitan Government, which is overseeing the Sangam-based autonomous car service operated by the two startups. As self-driving cars further expand, 5G is expected to play a key role in allowing the cars on the road to stay connected to one another as well, Mr. Kim says.

The self-driving cars currently operate like a shuttle service, traveling on two preset routes, 5.3 kilometers and 4 kilometers long (3.3 miles and 2.5 miles). For now, the vehicles go to only designated stops on the route, but the eventual goal is for them to operate like a cab, able to pick up riders at any desired location, according to the city government.

The city government plans to roll out 5G-supported autonomous buses next month and said it is working with Hyundai Motor Co. to introduce an autonomous “robo taxi” service in Gangnam, a central area of Seoul, this year. Kakao Mobility, the transportation business unit of local technology company Kakao Corp., is testing an independent service in the city of Pangyo in which riders can fetch autonomous cars to a location of their choice.

Out front

South Korea was the world’s first country to roll out commercial 5G networks, in 2019, and currently has the highest proportion of the population using 5G—roughly 36%, compared with 21% in China and 16.5% in the U.S.—according to Omdia, a tech-market research firm. As of 2021, South Korea also ranked No. 1 in 5G download speeds globally, four times faster than Taiwan and around 10 times faster than the U.S., according to internet-speed analysis firm Speedcheck.

South Korea’s ability to achieve widespread 5G coverage quickly stems from a combination of robust government support and an end-to-end ecosystem of telecom providers, network equipment makers, smartphone vendors, and consumers keen to pick up new technologies, says Ramona Zhao, a research manager for the Asia-Pacific telecom market at Omdia.

The country’s comprehensive lead in the 5G space gives South Korea an edge in the development and uptake of various 5G-backed applications as well, like augmented and virtual reality and more recently, the metaverse, according to Ms. Zhao. “The consumers are willing to try new things and adopt them faster,” she says.

The fast speed at which various technologies including telecom move forward in South Korea also effectively pushes homegrown companies in the 5G network ecosystem to stay at the forefront of technology development, says Kim Woo-june, executive vice president of marketing at Samsung Electronics Co. ’s network business division.

“It forces us to develop the next-generation equipment much more quickly,” he says. “Korea is a place where we can test out the latest thing much faster than in other countries.”

One such effort is now happening in mass transportation. South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT is collaborating with Samsung’s network business and the nation’s three telecom providers to deploy a 5G Wi-Fi network in Seoul’s subways for riders. It’s the first large-scale attempt globally to deploy 5G on high-speed mass-transit vehicles and is expected to provide subway passengers network speeds that are roughly 10 times faster than the current average, Samsung says. The 5G Wi-Fi network is expected to become operational across Seoul’s subway lines by the end of this year, the ICT ministry says.

5G also has made significant progress in the business sector as a technology helping to digitize and upgrade various industries. Enterprise 5G networks, which prioritize low-latency connections, are helping companies and institutions make the technological leap in everything from smarter factories to remote surgeries at hospitals.

For example, South Korean telecom provider KT Corp. has deployed private 5G networks at Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. to support autonomous robots sent to dangerous construction sites. The telecom provider also has worked with Seoul-based Severance Hospital to install a 5G system and 360-degree cameras inside ambulances to enable live communication and patient data exchanges between hospital staff and first responders. KT’s rivals are pursuing similar projects, further incorporating 5G into the local corporate landscape.

Into the metaverse

Looking ahead, 5G networks are expected to play a key supporting role in ushering the world into another up-and-coming tech space—the metaverse. Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others have been investing billions of dollars and rolling out new products catering to this emerging digital world.

As metaverse platforms expand to host a greater variety of data-heavy content and more users, a high-performance 5G network will be essential to handling the exponential surge in data traffic, analysts and companies say.

“We’re only at the start of the metaverse business, but we’ll see increasingly more diverse content and intricate worlds get built within the metaverse. 5G will be a key technology enabling this expansion,” says Yang Maeng-seog, vice president and chief of SK Telecom Co. ’s metaverse business. That business is centered on “Ifland,” a metaverse platform where people can engage with one another as 3-D avatars, launched by SK Telecom last year.

In 5G-ready South Korea, a lot is already happening in the metaverse space, which largely targets young users. SK Telecom’s “Ifland” as well as internet giant Naver Corp.’s metaverse platform Zepeto have hosted everything from K-pop fan meetings and big brands’ gadget launches to film viewings and university commencement ceremonies.

Ms. Sohn is a Wall Street Journal reporter in Seoul. She can be reached at [email protected].