BUSAN ― South Korea’s mobile carriers are competing over Internet connection speeds here at an exhibition on the sidelines of an International Telecommunications Union conference as they prepare for the Internet of Things era.

SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus are displaying their capability to provide fast gigabit connection speeds via demonstrations of high-resolution content downloads or streaming at the three-day World IT Show.

SK Telecom said Monday that it has partnered with Samsung Electronics to develop fifth-generation mobile communications technology and services as worldwide governments hold discussions over 5G standardization at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference.

Under SKT CEO Ha Sung-min’s “ICTnomics” for the IoT, Korea’s largest carrier has offered a glimpse into its 5G network service that can send content data at 3.7 gigabits per second through a superhigh-frequency channel.

This is equivalent to a speed 48 times faster than Long Term Evolution, allowing users to watch 100 Ultra HD movies simultaneously.

“We will aim to share a vision and generate synergy in 5G with network manufacturers,” said Choi Jin-sung, head of SK Telecom’s ICT R&D division.

KT has continued to showcase its GiGA brand here in line with chief executive Hwang Chang-gyu’s “GiGAtopia” vision, launching its gigabit Internet service at the speed of 1Gbps nationwide, the second-largest carrier said on Monday.

GiGA Internet, which is 10 times faster than existing connections and three times faster than Wi-Fi, allows users to download 4GB HD movies in 33 seconds.

“KT holds the country’s largest gigabit Internet network coverage, or up to 12.5 times more than other telecom companies,” said a KT official.

LG Uplus, in collaboration with its affiliate LG Electronics, is also showcasing its 5G capabilities with the world’s first quad-core UHD IPTV service.

The world economy has not yet standardized 5G. However, the telecom industry has defined it as a next-generation mobile telecommunication network that can transmit data with a storage capacity 1,000 times larger than that of LTE at a speed of over 1Gbps.

“This is the minimum requirement to complement the IoT and virtual reality technologies, which will be vastly used in the near future for a wide range of businesses,” said an industry source.

By Park Hyong-ki (hkp@heraldcorp.com)