Ministry of Science and ICT Recognizes Subway Base Stations of Three Major Telecom Companies as Mandatory 5G Deployment Units

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] The Ministry of Science and ICT has accepted the request of the three major telecommunications companies to recognize the 1,500 subway base stations they will jointly build as part of the mandatory number of 5G base stations to be constructed.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 30th that it has established compliance inspection standards for 5G mobile communication frequency allocation conditions, including this content.

The Ministry of Science and ICT finalized the compliance inspection standards for allocation conditions to check adherence to network construction obligations, frequency usage plans, interference protection and avoidance plans, based on the opinions of stakeholders such as the three telecom companies and discussions from the Radio Policy Advisory Committee.

The government decided to include the 1,500 5G base stations that the three telecom companies plan to jointly build in the subway as part of the mandatory construction quantity. The Ministry of Science and ICT explained that it accepted this request recognizing that, from the perspective of public convenience, providing free high-quality services regardless of telecom companies' profits contributes to reducing the burden of communication fees.

However, telecom companies still cannot undergo 5G frequency allocation evaluation if they fail to exceed 10% of the network construction obligation quantity.

The Ministry of Science and ICT added 229 basic local governments (3.5 GHz band) and 6 metropolitan areas (28 GHz band) in addition to the 17 metropolitan local governments nationwide as service provision areas in this compliance inspection standard. The three telecom companies must build base stations to provide frequency usage services in these areas as well.

The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to receive network construction performance data from 2019 to 2021 by April next year, conduct on-site inspections and evaluation committee reviews, and derive the final results.

The three telecom companies had previously promised the government during the 2018 5G frequency allocation to build a total of 45,000 base stations in the 28 GHz band by the end of 2021. Accordingly, the three telecom companies must build 4,500 units, which is 10% of the mandatory construction quantity, within this year. Telecom companies that build less than 10% of the mandatory quantity or score below 30 points in the evaluation will face sanctions including cancellation of allocation.

Choi Woo-hyuk, Director of the Radio Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, "This inspection standard maintains the strict evaluation and sanction system presented at the time of allocation announcement, while including measures to actively incentivize network investment efforts."

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