Speed ​​and 5G coverage are not only uneven, but around the world

The 5G is here, but even if you live in one of the few cities in the world where new generation mobile networking is enabled, you will likely find that coverage (and speeds) are far from spectacular. at the present time.

The good news is that you are not alone. We have already tested the new 5G networks in the United States and the United Kingdom, where speeds and connectivity vary enormously, and we are now doing our 5G trip to South Korea.

With a Samsung Galaxy S10 5G in hand, we spent three days in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, to test the coverage and speeds, and the results are … just as predictable.

Seoul is considered one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world, but its 5G networks do not seem to be doing better than those in the United States and the United Kingdom over the past decade. first months of the fifth generation mobile network.

Day 1: our first South Korean experience in 5G

We receive our Samsung Galaxy S10 5G phone and quickly decode, connect and configure the phone. By checking the signal, it indicates that it has received a complete 5G signal. Speed ​​test time.

Our phone arrived with a Korean Telecom (KT) SIM card installed and this is the only network we had access to during our stay in South Korea.

By pulling on Fast.com, we found that speeds varied enormously: they reached about 40 Mbps and peaked (for us at least) at about 360 Mbps.

We were sitting in a room of about 50 journalists who all came to have the same phone and did the same tests – so that our device would fight for bandwidth.

However, the score at 360 Mbps is at least promising, but when we returned to our hotel, the Galaxy S10 5G read only the LTE in the signal bar. It is time to charge and get ready for more testing in the morning.

Day 2: Improvements, in places

Welcome to the second day, if you have reached this stage … well, there is no praise for it because you have not really gone far. Just keep reading, yeah?

With a solid day ahead of us and many moves between downtown Seoul and the suburbs, it's the perfect opportunity to test the length and breadth of KT's 5G coverage while we take a bus.

The 5G signal was not available inside our hotel, but on leaving, we had full 5G measurements, and some speed tests later showed that high speeds were available. .

We managed to record a gigantic bitrate of 830 Mbps, which far exceeds the 4G speeds you can get. However, when we started moving into the city center, the 5G signal went to 4G and vice versa several times, and it seemed we had dropped out of the next generation network.

As with the deployment in British and American cities, Seoul has 5G at its center, but it has not yet expanded its activities.

Day 3: downloads in a flash

Another day and some extra speed tests allow us to get 5G speeds of up to 700 Mbps.

What does it mean in terms of use? Well, WhatsApp and Instagram (less than 40MB) have been downloaded in an instant – and in these early days of 5G, there are fast downloads and unstuffed streaming that are case – insensitive. clear use for technology.

It's not like we've been waiting for ages to download applications on 4G, but these high speeds are just the tip of the 5G's capabilities.

In the next few years, as networks become more widespread and developers begin to explore the possibilities of a faster, more reliable and almost latency-free network, we will see the true power of the network.

For now though, unless you live in a 5G coverage area in a big city of the world, it's always interesting to wait for 5G networks to grow further, for prices to go down and for more handsets are available, before switching to 5G.

We would say to leave it for at least a year, but if you can stay for 18 to 24 months, you may end up in an even better 5G position.