Park Jung-ho, CEO of the network provider SK Telecom, marked the launch with a video call to a staff manager in its Myeong-dong office in central Seoul—the world’s first commercial 5G video call. The pilot 5G smartphone used was made by Samsung Electronics. (Korea Herald)

Talking point: “I feel deeply moved by this first video call on a 5G smartphone,” said Park, adding that it was clearer and faster than it would have been on LTE. SK Telecom plans to expand coverage to 24 major cities, including on subway and bullet-train stations with large floating populations. Other network providers, such as KT and LG Uplus, have also launched commercial 5G networks in the country. Currently available only to enterprise customers, the service is expected to become publicly available in March 2019. The launch places Samsung ahead of the competition: a new report from Bloomberg said Apple will be waiting until at least 2020 to release a 5G phone. It’s also the latest example of South Korea’s dramatic lead in 5G over Canada, who isn’t even holding a 5G spectrum auction until 2020.