New Caledonia, situated in the Southern Pacific, is a unique collectivity of France. A French collectivity is a territory that is governed by the French Constitution and has its own local government and regulatory authority. It operates independently from the European Union, exempting it from EU roaming regulations. As a result, international providers typically impose high roaming charges for usage within New Caledonia. Even French providers treat New Caledonia as an overseas destination, akin to certain other French overseas territories. Despite this, the archipelago boasts a robust telecommunications infrastructure, ensuring both residents and visitors have access to a diverse range of mobile services.
OPT-NC dominates New Caledonia's telecommunications landscape, holding a monopoly over fixed and mobile voice services, mobile internet, fixed broadband access, and wholesale services for other internet service providers.
The nation benefits from extensive 3G and LTE networks, contributing to one of the highest highest smartphone adoption rates in the Pacific region. Projections indicate that smartphone penetration will rise to 71% by 2025.
Mobile services operate on various frequencies depending on the location within the country: 2G operates on 900 MHz, while 3G operates on 900 MHz in rural areas and 2100 MHz in urban centers. 4G/LTE operates on 800, 1800, and 2100 MHz (bands 1, 3, 20).
L’Office des Postes et Télécommunications de Nouvelle-Calédonie (OPT-NC) stands as the exclusive operator, a public enterprise established in 2003. Its services encompass banking, postal, and telecommunications provisions, including landline, ADSL, and mobile phone services.
The 2G network is being phased out since 2022 and will cease to exist on 1st Jan 2025. The press release explains (translated from French):
OPT-NC has stopped deploying new 2G sites since 2019 and has been gradually shutting down the technology since the beginning of 2022 on sites in urban areas. The final shutdown is planned for 2025.
To confirm the definitive end of 2G technology, OPT-NC supports its customers by:
Extending homogeneous 3G/4G coverage to the current 2G coverage;
Densifying the dimensioning of the mobile network so as to be able to properly absorb traffic;
Deploying cellular Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, namely:
the NB-IoT which will serve uses such as smart metering, smart city, smart agriculture;
the CAT-M1 which is a network capable of responding to complex issues, mobility or real time. It will provide the same level of service as 2G for uses such as vehicle tracking.
OPT, in conjunction with the government of New Caledonia, is progressing with the implementation of private 5G networks. Earlier this year marked the initial stride toward integrating "private 5G" networks into industrial sectors within New Caledonia.
Olivier Amat, the director of telecommunications at OPT, elucidated the organization's strategy strategy regarding 5G. He recounted the evolution from 2G to 4G before delving into the potentials of 5G: "With speeds of up to 10Gbps, support for up to 100 times more connected devices per coverage area, a service life of up to 10 years for low-power IoT device batteries, 99.999% availability, 5 milliseconds latency, and 100% coverage." This progression serves as a testament to the advancements, leaving the limitations of 4G behind. Following some technical and tactical intricacies along with "ergotical" definitions, Olivier disclosed plans for local deployment of the technology, culminating with a compelling statistic: on average, each individual now consumes twice as much data in a single week as they did throughout the entirety of 2010.
Meanwhile Google is trying to make inroads into New Caledonia, due to its strategic geography in the Indo-Pacific region, where China and the US are waging a battle of influence over subsea internet cables.
French authorities recently said they had lifted a ban ban in New Caledonia on TikTok, which they suspect of fuelling recent unrest in the French Pacific territory. The government believes the app was being used by those opposed to French rule to communicate and organise violent protests.
The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) represents the voice of the mobile ecosystem with members including vendors, operators, academia and regulators. GSA has nine Executive Members, including Apple, Ericsson, Huawei, MediaTek, Nokia, Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung and ZTE. With a further 80+ Members and Associates, GSA draws its membership from across the global mobile ecosystem, including mobile operators, regulators, analyst firms, academia and an extensive vendor community spanning chipsets to devices, and network equipment to FWA and private mobile specialists. GSA is a Market Representation Partner in 3GPP and co-operates with other key organisations including ITU, GCF, CITEL, COAI, ETSI, GSMA, CEPT-ECC, ATU, and other regional regulatory bodies.
The first GSA report closely tracking the status of 4G and 5G network deployment in Latin America was published earlier this month. It uses the latest GSA data and draws on various GSA reports, including private mobile networks, to provide a comprehensive overview of the status of 4G and 5G roll-outs in the region. Quoting from the paper summary:
In recent years, Latin America has witnessed significant advancements in telecommunications technology, particularly in mobile networks. The proliferation of 4G LTE networks has transformed the digital landscape, enabling faster data speeds, enhanced connectivity and the widespread adoption of mobile broadband services across the region. Moreover, the advent of 5G technology promises to usher in a new era of connectivity, characterized by ultrafast speeds, low latency and greater security.
This report delves into various aspects of mobile network evolution including the status of LTE, the roll-out of 5G networks, advancements in LTE-Advanced, the emergence of 5G standalone infrastructure, the development of private networks and the switch-off of 2G and 3G technologies.
In this regional spotlight webinar, the GSA Research team was joined by senior representatives from telecom regulators, including Alejandro Navarrete, Head of the Radioelectric Spectrum Unit at IFT and ANATEL’s Deputy Superintendent of Granting and Resources, Mr Sidney Azeredo, to explore the challenges and opportunities for 5G in the region. During the webinar, the GSA Research team shared the latest data on:
The status of LTE and 5G in the region
Private Networks in LATAM
Spectrum assignments, both recently completed and upcoming
Following the data snapshot is a roundtable discussion with regulators where the panel explores the market dynamics and what the future holds for 4G and 5G in their markets. The webinar is embedded below:
South Korea is second only to Hong Kong in the world rankings of telecom market maturity. It enjoys a highly competitive but stable market, with strong central government support that helps drive the rollout of advanced infrastructure in both the fixed and mobile arenas. South Korea is also on the leading edge of the latest telecom technology developments, including around 6G. And it is host to two of the world’s top equipment manufacturers in the form of Samsung and LG.
With its highly urbanised, tech-savvy population, South Korea also enjoys very high penetration levels across all segments – fixed-line telephony (44% at the start of 2022), fixed broadband (46%), mobile voice and data (144%), and mobile broadband (120%). The performance of the mobile sector is on a par with other developed markets around the region, but it’s the wireline segment that allows South Korea to stand out from the crowd. This is partly a reflection of the large proportion of its population who live in apartment buildings (around 60%), making fibre and apartment LAN connections relatively easy and cost-effective to deploy. The government’s Ultra Broadband convergence Network (UBcN) had aimed to reach 50% adoption by the end of 2022, but that target may be a few more years away. Still, the country already has one of the world’s highest fixed broadband rates.
Fixed-line teledensity is also at a very high level compared to most of the rest of the world, but it has been on a sharp decline from a penetration rate of 60% ten years ago. That fall has forced the incumbent telco KT Corp to diversify into other telecom segments (including investments in 5G and the development of 6G) as well as non-telecom sectors (such as autonomous vehicles) in an effort to transform itself into a digital platform company. However, a major network outage in October 2021 drew the ire of the government and the police (in addition to the consumers and businesses directly affected by the shutdown), suggesting that the company may need to refocus its attention back on its core business.
On the mobile front, users have enthusiastically migrated from one generation of mobile platform to the next as each iteration becomes available. There also doesn’t appear to be any great concern about there being a lack of demand for 5G in South Korea (when the country is already well supported by 4G networks), with 30% of all subscribers having already made the switch. Part of the reason behind the rapid transition may be the subsidised handsets on offer from each of the MNOs and the MVNOs – a practice that has become so widespread and cutthroat that the regulators has regularly stepped in and fined the operators billions of won for breaching the subsidy level and risking a price war that will ultimately damage the entire industry.
There were over 22 million 5G subscribers in South Korea at the end of March 2022 which represented a penetration rate of 45%, served by 215,000 5G base stations. South Korea is one of the most advanced 5G markets in the world, and the scores of South Korea's operators in this report highlight the extent of 5G success.
The total number of 5G subscribers in South Korea reached nearly 24 million in May 2022, according to the latest available data from the Ministry of Science and ICT.
South Korea was the first country to launch commercial 5G networks in April 2019 and currently has 5G coverage across its 85 cities. Korean mobile operators have deployed a total of 202,903 5G base stations as of the end of February, according to previous reports. This figure is equivalent to 23% of total 4G LTE base stations installed in South Korea.
2 of 2: "The only real 5G that is available to the Korean public is basically glorified WiFi in the subways" - https://t.co/dFa8lS84ob
Not everyone is impressed by 5G in South Korea though as you can see in the Tweets above.
KT (Korea Telecom) is the public provider and 2nd network in the country with a good coverage. It's a formerly public enterprise, is relatively cheaper than SK Telecom with the largest WiFi coverage in Korea and a well-organized prepaid plan available. Remember, there is no 2G anymore, just 3G, 4G/LTE and now 5G NR.
KT has also unveiled plans to build a specialized 5G testbed running on the 4.7 GHz band with the aim of enabling multiple customers to access its core network equipment from the public cloud and test private or “specialized” networks.
“When KT’s 5G specialized network testbed is established, it will be possible to perform a one-stop service for testing equipment for 5G specialized network, interworking with terminals, and conducting network trial operation and inspection. It is expected to greatly reduce the cost and technical burden of companies considering the introduction of a 5G specialized network.”
The Korean operator added the testbed is expected to reduce the cost and technical requirements for companies considering introducing private networks.
KT is deploying private 5G networks at Seoul National University and Samsung Seoul Hospital.
SK Telecom is the biggest mobile provider in South Korea. SK operates 3G on the usual 2100 MHz, but 4G/LTE on the rather unusual 850 MHz (band 5) as primary frequency that is rarely covered by devices from overseas (except those capable of AT&T's LTE in the US). The more usual 1800 MHz (band 3) is only employed for back-up. But the coverage is reported to be better than that of KT, by press every year. 2G has been switched off in 2020.
In November of 2021, Swedish vendor Ericsson announced a partnership with SK Telecom, with the aim of supporting 5G Standalone networks through the deployment of a cloud-native dual-mode 5G Core.
Ericsson and SK Telecom had initially unveiled next-generation cloud-native 5G Core networks technology, architecture, implementation and operations plans in March 2019. The vendor said that this latest cooperation builds on the existing partnership. According to Ericsson, the dual-mode 5G core is deployed on its bare metal solution, known as Ericsson Cloud Native Infrastructure.
Ericsson had previously provided SK Telecom with 5G radio access network (RAN) equipment and network management system for their commercial 5G network rollout.
LG Uplus is working to further expand its 5G coverage across the country. In July this year, the operator secured an additional 20 megahertz of spectrum to use for 5G.
The Ministry of Science and ICT confirmed the allocation of the 3.4-3.42 GHz frequency band to LG Uplus, in addition to the 3.42 to 3.5 GHz spectrum that the telecom company bought in 2018.
LG Uplus had previously asked the Korean government for an additional 20 megahertz of spectrum to boost its 5G offerings. In a government spectrum auction in June 2018, rival operators SK Telecom and KT had secured 100 megahertz of spectrum, while LG Uplus had only acquired 80 megahertz.
During a keynote speech at Huawei’s 2022 Mobile Broadband Forum, held this week in Bangkok, Thailand, Yoon Ho Choi, president of XR business department at LG Uplus noted that the company’s 5G coverage had reached 85% of the population in large cities and central rural areas across Korea. The executive also highlighted that the level of 5G availability at a national level was 90.9% and 95.2% in capital Seoul. He also noted that the average download speed of the telco’s 5G service was 640.7 Mbps.
Norway still (narrowly) No 1 in median mobile download speed in September according to @Speedtest. China improving quickly. China, Netherlands and Denmark for the first time ahead of South Korea. #Top10pic.twitter.com/xX67u6CTaT
While the mobile operators have been very enthusiastic about 5G, people aren't as excited. While the data rates have increased and latencies reduced, there are still many technical issues that regularly plague the users. One of the lessons Japanese operators learned after being the first to launch 3G was to not roll out a technology until it was thoroughly tested. The Korean operators maybe learning this as well.
South Korea is seeing a rapid adoption of 5G private networks, chiefly due to the widespread coverage of 5G technology in the country and the allocation of specific spectrum by the government to enable private network deployments.
In August, South Korean tech firm Samsung announced a tranche of new private 5G deployments in its home country, including with three public sector agencies and two private sector hospitals. The vendor noted that this project is part of the government initiative to advance the country’s private 5G ecosystem, allowing non-telecom operators to build and operate 5G networks using 4.7GHz and 28GHz — which are dedicated frequency bands for private 5G networks in Korea.
Samsung said it was selected in each case – by three state-owned utilities and two privately-owned hospitals – “as part of the government’s” drive to release spectrum for industrial change. Its three public sector contracts – with Korea Electric Power Corporation, Korea Industrial Complex Corporation, and Korea Water Resources Corporation – are geared around “workplace safety and efficiency”, it said.
The vendor also said that this new project follows Samsung’s previous deployment of what it claimed to be Korea’s first private 5G network at Naver’s new headquarters.
Since the launch of the first European 5G Standalone Network, Vodafone Germany has continued innovating, to find the killer use case. Here are some of them that they have been working on this year.
First 5G Hospital: In the first 5G clinic in Europe, the network of the future will make innovative applications possible in the future that will significantly improve the medical treatment and care of patients. Whether in surgery, in the emergency room or even when calling the emergency services: "Digitization can save lives", says Vodafone Germany boss Hannes Ametsreiter. In order to expand the digital possibilities in hospitals, the Düsseldorf network pioneer is now equipping the Düsseldorf University Hospital (UKD) with 5G power. "We bring our real-time network directly to the hospital to support patients and doctors with new technologies."
5G Telemedicine: State-of-the-art technology, sensors and a direct line to a doctor await you when you visit the doctor in the telemedicine station. The US company Onmed has now launched one of the first treatment rooms for remote treatment on the market. Go in, get treatment, get medication, go out again. A visit to the doctor in the telemedicine station could be so easy. The first Onmed stations are to be set up in the USA and worldwide this year. And now let's take a look. This is what you can expect when you visit the doctor in the telemedicine station
Research on the 5G train: Vodafone builds campus network for test track in the Ore Mountains - Imagine you take the train from Hamburg to Berlin - and that completely without a train driver: in. How this can work is researched and tested by Vodafone in cooperation with the Technical University of Chemnitz. With 5G and the Internet of Things, the two partners want to digitalize rail traffic sustainably in order to make it safer and more efficient.
Sky 5G Multiview App: Anyone watching football matches in the stadium wants to see top sporting performance on the pitch and experience pure emotions. But fans in the stands do not always get every detail of the game and miss some crucial scenes. 5G technology from Vodafone and the Sky 5G Multiview app could soon change that. The Sky 5G Multiview app combines the advantages of a live sports broadcast on home TV with real emotions in the stadium. Because the new app provides fans in the audience with exclusive content and makes it possible to experience the top game directly on the smartphone from five camera perspectives.
Football live with DAZN: GIGA 5G from Vodafone kicks off the real-time broadcast - Vodafone and the sports platform DAZN want to make live sports broadcasting with 5G technology more environmentally friendly, more efficient and more flexible. The two partners are working on a sustainable football live stream that brings the impressions and emotions from the pitch to your home in real time. Live broadcasts at sports events usually work like this: Several cameras are connected to an OB van via cables. From there, the recordings are forwarded to a broadcasting center via satellite and played out from there. All of this requires a lot of technical and human resources. The data exchange via the 5G network from Vodafone can simplify these processes considerably. With the innovative solution from Vodafone and DAZN, the camera is simply connected to a 5G-capable router and the recordings are transmitted directly to the broadcast center. No annoying cables, no OB vans and almost no delay.
Please note: All news item from German has been translated to English automatically using Google translate.
Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom reported that the 26 GHz spectrum auction ended on 8 June 2020 and three frequency bands of 800 megahertz were auctioned. This now means that all three layers (coverage, capacity and high-throughput), ideally required for 5G rollouts has been allocated in Finland as can be seen in the picture below.
The government grants licences on the basis of the outcome of the auction. The frequency range can be used for the construction of 5G networks from 1 July 2020. The licences are valid until 31 December 2033. Finland's position as a top 5G country will be further strengthened by allocating more frequencies for 5G use. Additional frequencies for new technology communications networks provide more capacity and very high speeds for communication links.
Each operator paid 7 million Euros for the spectrum. More details are available here.
5G Observatory reported that, the lowest 850 MHz part of the pioneer band (24.25-25.1 GHz) will be reserved for local and/or regional vertical players and research & development or educational usage.
Big shots from Nokia we quick to announce how operators can provide multi-Gigabit throughput using this newly acquired spectrum.
All three Finnish mobile operators will have 800 MHz of mmWave spectrum available July 1. That is the way towards multi-Gbps 5G data rates and extreme local capacities https://t.co/GQH0J9nuPA
Congrats @teliafinland on securing 800MHz of 26GHz mmWave band! Let’s put some product in the mast. This will deliver 4Gbps speed or cell capacity. And even more with CA over FR1+FR2 or ENDC dual connectivity. #telia#Nokia#5G#Traficomhttps://t.co/ft6REZ8Ht8
Back in October 2018, the operators had received spectrum in C-band as reported here.
Back in November 2016, Finnish operators spent €66m to acquire paired 10MHz bandwidth of the 700 MHz spectrum auction. Capacity media reported:
Finnish operators have paid more than €66 million to acquire new 700MHz spectrum in the country’s latest auction. Telia Company, DNA and Elisa each splashed out €22 million to secure 2x10 MHz of frequencies, with licenses running from February 2017 until the end of 2033. The auction ran until 24 November with licenses payable across five annual instalments. The fee agreed was the reserve price set by the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority, which offered six pairs of frequency blocks of 5MHz each. To secure the licenses, the operators agreed to provide 4G coverage to at least 99% of Finland’s population by 2020, although both DNA and Elisa said they had already hit the target with their existing networks. Telia, which operates under the Sonera name, said its coverage is 97% at this time. DNA said it will used the spectrum to build up its 4G capacity in sparsely populated areas, while Elisa promised to start construction of 700-MHz-enabled 4G networks next year.
Since then Telia has re branded all their networks to Telia.
