When we think of the Olympic Games, we tend to focus on the sporting events taking place. Not many of us consider the massive amount of effort that went into making those swimming, skiing, racing and snowboarding events possible.
The fact of the matter is that there is A LOT that goes into building and connecting an Olympic stadium. The way in which we might measure the success of a normal stadium simply doesn’t cut it when that particular stadium is going to house the world’s best athletes, along with millions of fans. Not to mention the countless people watching and listening to the sporting events in their home countries. Needless to say, connectivity is everything when it comes to the Olympics.
That’s why South Korea has been working on this problem for months now. The country will be hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. And, in order to accommodate the influx of people, it is planning to launch a 5G trial service for the Games.
This decision is part of South Korea’s overall plan to get 5G up and running as quickly as possible. The overall hope is to deploy a commercial 5G mobile network in the second half of 2019, according to the director of ICT and Broadcasting Technology Policy at South Korea’s Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning. According to a recent article written by Doug Irwin, “The country estimates that 5G technology will have a penetration rate there of nearly 5 percent by 2020, the year in which 5G is expected to be launch in several markets worldwide. It was also estimated that 5G subscribers will represent 30 percent of total mobile subscribers in South Korea by 2021, 50 percent by 2020 and 90 percent by 2026.”
To reach these statistic goals, local telecom operators will start building trial networks across the country. It sounds like the 2018 Winter Olympics will be the first big trial run of 5G service in South Korea, though. It’s not a bad idea, really; what better place to stage a trial run than the Olympics? If the trial 5G service can withstand the massive amount of people likely to attend the Olympics, then it will be able to handle a normal day in South Korea without problem.
Edited by Maurice Nagle