Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT recently announced that the country is set to kick off commercialization of 6G services between 2028 and 2030 that is boasted to deliver speed up to 50 times faster than 5G and the latency to be reduced to one-tenth, the Yonhap News Agency reported on March 2. Being the first country to commercialize 5G services in April 2019, Korea aims to maintain its edge in telecommunications technology in 6G and in innovative digital technologies associated with metaverse, blockchain, AI, and cloud. To this end, the country plans to earmark 220 billion Won (US$195 million) to develop 6G network technology by 2025 while launching 14 low earth orbit satellites by 2031 to trial run 6G technology. Meanwhile, the country also entered a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) in this February with the United States ‘National Science Foundation to join forces in the development of 6G technologies. The Ministry is working on signing MoUs with CAICT (China Academy of Information and Communications Technology) and Finland’s University of Oulu.
Global 5G subscriber base is forecast to reach 3.5 billion by 2026, up from 200 million units in 2020, according to MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute), a major government think tank and one of the leading research institutes in Taiwan. The CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) is estimated at 50.51% during the period 2020-2026.