SK Telecom (SKT), KT and LG Uplus announced pricing plans for their 5G consumer services, which are scheduled to go live on Friday (5 March).
All three are offering basic data packages with 8GB or 9GB for KRW55,000 ($48.48) a month, with speeds limited to 1Mb/s after the data allocation is reached.
Market leader SKT, with 34,000 5G base stations, said its standard 5GX plan with 150GB of data and priced at KRW75,000 throttles the speed to 5Mb/s after the data is used. Its prime and platinum packages cost KRW89,000 and KRW125,000 a month for 200GB and 300GB respectively, but are unlimited until the end of the year.
Second-ranked KT has similar offers priced at KRW80,000, KRW100,000 and KRW130,000. The standard KRW80,000 plan is less expensive than the operator’s unlimited 4G data tariff, Yonhap News Agency reported.
KT, which has 30,000 5G sites, predicts 5G users will account for more than 10 per cent of its mobile customers by the end 2018, the news agency said.
LG Uplus’ standard 5G plan includes 150GB for KRW75,000, with speeds reduced to 7Mb/s after the allocation is used, while its premium package offers 250GB for KRW95,000 (speeds cut to 7Mb/s). The premium plan is discounted until the end of June to KRW66,000, which is the same as its unlimited LTE plan.
Samsung’s Galaxy S10 5G goes on sale Friday as well.
Delayed launch
The operators in early March pushed back ambitious plans [1] to launch nationwide 5G commercial services for consumers by the end of the month due to a number of setbacks, including handset availability and a government rejection of their pricing proposals.
All three claimed initial launches in late 2018 were the first commercial 5G services based on 3GPP standards. But the services had limited coverage and were only available for businesses using mobile routers, with the operators plotting their consumer launch around commercial availability of compatible handsets.
[1] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/home-banner/south-korea-5g-service-launch-put-on-ice/
