Swisscom has signed its first roaming agreements with South Korea’s SK Telecom and Finland’s Elisa – with its customers being able to use a fast mobile network abroad.
Swisscom customers with a 5G-enabled mobile phone will now be able to access the new 5G data network in Finland as of July 17 and in South Korea by the end of the month.
Both countries are seen as forerunners when it comes to expanding the latest generation of mobile communications. For instance, South Korea has over 62,000 5G antennas and nearly 1.64m active users, whereas Finland leads the domain in Europe together with Switzerland. 5G went live in Switzerland in April 2019 and now Swisscom is planning to spread its coverage to 90% of the population by the end of year.
Earlier this month, Telecom Italia (TIM) announced that it will be rolling out 5G initiatives in major cities and industrial districts, along with digital literacy initiatives set to launch all over the country after the summer. TIM has already initiated the 5G movement in Rome and Turin and recently added Naples to the list wherein the telecom company has activated 5G and made the first commercial services available for families and companies.
Additionally, Canalys has predicted that around 800m units of 5G-enabled handsets will be shipped in 2023, which will account for 51.4% of all smartphone shipments. It says the CAGR between 2019 and 2023 will be 179.9%, whereas vendors will ship nearly 1.9b devices to market by the forecasted period.
Picture credit: (c)iStock.com/assalve
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