South Korea to 'invest £900m in 5G development'

South Korea's science ministry is reportedly investing 1.6 trillion won (around £900m) in the development of 5G 

  

The superfast mobile internet technology is speculated to download a 800MB film within a single second. Using current 4G technology, the process would take around 40 seconds.

5G could facilitate the streaming of 3D films or live ultra high-definition content on mobile devices, according to Samsung.

Expected to be fully implemented by December 2020, 5G will be first trialled in the country during 2017.

A science ministry spokesman said: "We helped fuel national growth with 2G services in the 1990s, 3G in the 2000s and 4G around 2010. Now it is time to take preemptive action to develop 5G.

"Countries in Europe, China and the US are making aggressive efforts to develop 5G technology ... and we believe there will be fierce competition in this market in a few years."
South Korea holds a 30 per cent stake in the global mobile market, where more than 78 per cent of its 50 million population use smartphones.

The full range of 5G services will be tested at 2018's PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Last year Samsung announced what they called a 5G breakthrough, using much higher frequencies than those used for 4G which work over distances up to 2km.

In November last year Ofcom said it had identified a number of potential new spectrum bands for mobile broadband use in the future.

The new spectrum could potentially boost boost mobile data capacity by more than 25 times between now and 2030.