Operators in South Korea faced their first official 5G test, with The Korea Herald reporting the Ministry of Science ICT and Future Planning began assessing the quality of services available following complaints and contract cancellations.

The government is already conducting evaluations on call quality and reception at around 100 locations in Seoul, Busan, Incheon, Daegu, Daejeon, Gwangju and Ulsan, the newspaper reported, explaining the action was prompted by the number of complaints received by customer rights group Voice of Consumers.

It reportedly received more than 2,000 queries about 5G services over the past year, a third of which related to cancelling service due to poor quality.

Data from the Korea Communications Commission showed complaints about 5G networks accounted for 20 per cent of all grievances, The Korea Herald stated.

SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus launched non-standalone 5G service in early April 2019 and had a combined 5.89 million subscribers at end-March.

They deployed an estimated 92,000 base stations nationwide by end-January and committed to investing KRW4 trillion ($3.3 billion) in 5G networks in the first half of 2020. But, the newspaper noted Covid-19 (coronavirus) restrictions limited this to around KRW1 trillion in Q1.