Science Minister Nominee "Considering 28GHz 5G Joint Construction"... Yang Jeongsuk Criticizes "Giving Up Real 5G"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] Yang Jeong-suk, an independent member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Communications Committee, expressed concern over Im Hye-sook, the nominee for Minister of Science and ICT, indicating a possible relaxation of the '28㎓ 5G base station' construction target ahead of the confirmation hearing.

According to the written response disclosed by Representative Yang on the 3rd, the Ministry of Science and ICT officially replied that 'considering the joint construction of 28㎓ band 5G base stations as a compliance measure is one of the possible alternatives.'

In response, Representative Yang claimed, "This suggests a policy change to reduce the mandatory condition for the three telecom companies to each build and open 15,000 28㎓ 5G base stations by the end of this year, totaling 45,000 stations, to one-third of that, 15,000 stations."

The base station construction targets promised by the three telecom companies upon allocation of the 28㎓ 5G frequency were 5,269 stations in 2019, 14,042 stations in 2020, and 25,904 stations in 2021, totaling 45,215 stations over three years. However, the number of base stations completed by the end of March this year was only 91.

Representative Yang pointed out, "There are still more than eight months left until the base station construction deadline at the end of this year, and so far, the three telecom companies have shown no significant facility investment or notable compliance performance, yet the Ministry of Science and ICT has abruptly changed its stance," calling it a "hasty policy favoring the operators."

He also stated, "If the policy changes, the mandatory base station construction scale for the three telecom companies will be reduced to one-third, saving an investment cost of 900 billion KRW (about 30 million KRW per station), but this is practically equivalent to abandoning the ‘real 5G’ with the largest frequency bandwidth, speed, and data processing capacity," adding "the base station construction targets promised by the three telecom companies at the time of frequency allocation must be fulfilled."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.