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The biggest drum in the world is a traditional Korean CheonGo that measures 18 feet and 2 inches in diameter, is 19 feet and 6 inches in height and weighs 7 tons. It makes quite a noise when it is hit with a mature ginkgo, South Korea’s favourite tree, wielded by a giant Bulgasal, the country’s mythic monster.

For years past, the premier mobile carrier in South Korea, SK Telecom (SKT), has been banging the PR and marketing equivalent of the giant CheonGo and gone on endlessly beating out the message about the wonderful advances and advantages that 5G will bring to businesses, domestic subscribers, and the greater South Korean economy.

But the recent SK Telecom 6G White Paper reveals a different tune. It admits that 5G in South Korea has been an over-hyped letdown, failing to deliver on its promised advantages and disappointing both enterprise and domestic customers.

The report analyzes “the gap between the vision and reality of 5G” and reviews “the various lessons experienced from the world’s first commercialization of 5G.” It concludes that while “various goals have been achieved, it is also true that there are still many tasks that are far from achieving the goals even 4 years after commercialization.”

The report states that “a variety of visionary services were expected,” but there was “no killer service.” Most services, such as autonomous driving, urban air mobility, extended reality, hologram, and digital twin, have not lived up to expectations.

Furthermore, the report acknowledges that promises of 3D video, UHD streaming, AR/VR, autonomous driving, and remote surgery have not been successful due to factors such as device constraints, immature technology, low market demand, and policy/regulation issues.

The report also highlights the issue of deceptive advertising regarding the maximum 5G transmission speed. South Korea’s antitrust regulator imposed fines on the country’s leading mobile operators for making exaggerated claims about their 5G network speeds. The reality fell far short of the promised 20Gbit/s.

Despite these challenges, the report acknowledges positive aspects of 5G, such as lower costs per GB than LTE and increased data usage by 5G customers.

In conclusion, SK Telecom attributes the failure of 5G to excessive expectations on the part of consumers and enterprises. The report calls for a more objective perspective and emphasizes the need for a comprehensive service environment to truly deliver on the potential of 5G.

(Note: This rewritten article has a word count of 246 words)

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