{"id":25344,"date":"2019-08-14T14:54:20","date_gmt":"2019-08-14T13:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/futurenetworks\/?p=25344"},"modified":"2019-10-28T11:07:44","modified_gmt":"2019-10-28T11:07:44","slug":"5g-roaming-is-now-a-commercial-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/technologies\/networks\/digest\/5g-roaming-is-now-a-commercial-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"5G Roaming is now a commercial reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

2019 has been widely referred to as \u2018the year of 5G<\/a>\u2019, and it\u2019s increasingly easy to see why. Following the first commercial launches in the US and South Korea (nationwide rollout by all three operators concurrently across all key cities and towns) on the 3rd<\/sup> of April this year, there are now 22 live 5G networks<\/a> globally \u2013 reaching nearly 1 in 20 people across the world so far \u2013 as operators invest nearly $160 billion<\/a> annually on expanding and upgrading their infrastructure to deliver this revolution in connectivity.\u00a0 Pre-commercial launch of 5G will take place in Japan<\/a> next month, as NTT DoCoMo prepares for full commercial implementation next year; China<\/a> begins nationwide rollout in October of this year, starting in Shanghai; in that same month O2 will become the fourth operator to launch in the UK<\/a>, where even the remote Orkney Islands<\/a> are in line for coverage; and just last week in the US, Verizon\u00a0 brought its 5G network to a further 4 cities, with a total of 30 US cities scheduled for coverage by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

5G enables mass-market enjoyment of services which simply aren\u2019t possible without it \u2013 for instance immersive Cloud XR<\/a> gaming, which as delegates at MWC19 Shanghai heard in June is currently the preserve of those with expensive high-end hardware, but can soon be brought to owners of much more everyday devices.\u00a0 For these services to meet the expectations of consumers in today\u2019s ever-more connected world, however, users need to be able to enjoy them seamlessly between different jurisdictions as they travel \u2013 which has now thankfully become a technological and commercial reality.\u00a0 In Korea \u2013 which became<\/a> home to the world\u2019s first nationwide 5G networks this year \u2013 two of the operators who worked together to roll 5G out across their own country are now leading the way on 5G roaming.<\/p>\n

LG Uplus<\/a> carried out the world\u2019s first successful trials of 5G roaming in Finland last month (delivered in collaboration with Elisa, Finland\u2019s largest operator), with commercial implementation now in place.\u00a0 The testing process allowed LG Uplus to learn valuable lessons on how to monitor and distinguish 5G traffic from 4G, allowing the appropriate billing, which of course is essential to ensuring these substantial investments are economical.\u00a0 Also helping to spearhead 5G roaming is SK Telecom<\/a>, which has agreed a strategic partnership with Swisscom to enable roaming between South Korea and Switzerland.\u00a0 Customers of SK Telecom using the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G will, upon download of a simple software update, be able to use 5G via Swisscom when in Switzerland, where Swisscom<\/a> is working to expand 5G coverage to 90% of the population by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

The GSMA is working to remove barriers for all new entrants into the vibrant and growing 5G ecosystem, with engagement events across the world to convene stakeholders and foster discussion of shared challenges: our upcoming seminar The 5G Era: Consumer Devices of the Future<\/a> at MWC19 Los Angeles, for instance, will convene senior players in this space to consider how 5G is transforming the devices that consumers use on a day-to-day basis. As momentum continues to build behind 5G around the world, we can expect that transformation to become quickly more apparent in the very near future.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2019 has been widely referred to as \u2018the year of 5G\u2019, and it\u2019s increasingly easy to see why. Following the first commercial launches in the US and South Korea (nationwide rollout by all three operators concurrently across all key cities and towns) on the 3rd of April this year, there are now 22 live 5G […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":25346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6894,9714,60],"tags":[],"algolia_discover_type":[15357],"class_list":["post-25344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5g-digest","category-digest","category-latest-news","algolia_discover_type-article"],"yoast_head":"\n5G Roaming is now a commercial reality - Networks<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/technologies\/networks\/digest\/5g-roaming-is-now-a-commercial-reality\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"5G Roaming is now a commercial reality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"2019 has been widely referred to as \u2018the year of 5G\u2019, and it\u2019s increasingly easy to see why. Following the first commercial launches in the US and South Korea (nationwide rollout by all three operators concurrently across all key cities and towns) on the 3rd of April this year, there are now 22 live 5G […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/technologies\/networks\/digest\/5g-roaming-is-now-a-commercial-reality\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Networks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gsma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-14T13:54:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-10-28T11:07:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/technologies\/networks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/975-x-480-Web-Blog-Header.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"975\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"sarah.evans@gsma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@GSMA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@GSMA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sarah.evans@gsma.com\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"5G Roaming is now a commercial reality - Networks","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/technologies\/networks\/digest\/5g-roaming-is-now-a-commercial-reality\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"5G Roaming is now a commercial reality","og_description":"2019 has been widely referred to as \u2018the year of 5G\u2019, and it\u2019s increasingly easy to see why. 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