"Fixing 5G Freezes on KTX and Slow Underground Speeds"... Government Overhauls Communication Quality Assessment

Focused Inspections on Underground Shopping Centers, Rural Areas, and High-Speed Rail

Direct Assessments of User Inconvenience Hotspots

'Improvement Recommendation' for Areas Below 100Mbps

New Evaluation System for 5G Standalone (SA) Mode Introduced

"Videos freeze on the KTX, and in underground shopping centers, 5G is slower than LTE."

The government is launching an 'experience-based quality assessment' that targets communication shadow zones and low-quality areas that have been the focus of public complaints. The evaluation system will shift from simply averaging speeds to focusing on the quality of communications as actually experienced by users.

Reference photo to aid understanding of the article. The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to inspect the facility construction status applying 'Joint Network 2.0' technology in stages to resolve quality issues on the Gyeongbu and Honam lines. Provided by Yonhap News Agency

On May 7, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced the '2026 Communication Service Quality Assessment Plan,' outlining these changes and initiating a full-scale evaluation.

The communication service quality assessment is an annual program that measures the coverage, connection availability, and transmission speeds of services such as 5G, LTE, and wired internet. Its aim is to provide users with objective quality information and encourage telecom operators to expand investment.

This year, the 5G quality assessment will cover 600 locations, the same as last year, but the evaluation of vulnerable indoor and outdoor areas will be significantly strengthened. Half of the total assessments, or 300 sites, will be allocated to indoor facilities, with a focus on inspecting places structurally prone to poor connectivity, such as museums, libraries, and underground commercial spaces. Areas where civic groups have reported user inconvenience will also be directly included in the evaluation.

In particular, new evaluation categories will be added for indoor facilities in rural and fishing villages as well as underground commercial areas within buildings. The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to focus inspections on facilities lacking indoor 5G base stations, aiming to spur telecom companies to increase their in-building investments.

For outdoor areas, the number of sites evaluated for the shared network jointly built by the three telecommunications companies will increase from 60 last year to 102 this year. Through this, the ministry aims to narrow the quality gap between urban and rural areas and strengthen incentives for investment in the shared network.

To better reflect the quality as experienced by users, the Ministry of Science and ICT will introduce a new standard for 'regions recommended for quality improvement.' While maintaining the existing threshold of more than 10% of measurements below 12Mbps, the ministry will also designate areas where more than 10% of measurements fall short of 100Mbps as separate management targets, encouraging operators to make further improvements.

Inspections of high-speed rail sections will also be reinforced. The ministry plans to check the phased construction status of facilities applying 'Shared Network 2.0' technology to resolve quality issues on the Gyeongbu and Honam Lines. Shared Network 2.0 goes beyond the previous method of jointly using one operator's wireless equipment by installing additional equipment to expand network capacity and subscriber accommodation.

Furthermore, in line with this year's transition by telecom companies to 5G standalone (SA) mode, the ministry will operate a research group of experts from industry, academia, and research institutes, and will develop new quality indicators and assessment methodologies tailored to the SA environment.

Choi Woo-hyuk, policy chief for Information Security and Network Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, "Communication service quality is now not just about speed but about the daily user experience of the public. We will strengthen quality assessments focusing on vulnerable and high-inconvenience areas and actively encourage voluntary investment and quality improvements by telecom operators."

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