South Korea's LG Uplus has announced it expects to start transmitting its first 5G radio waves at the start of next month ahead of a planned commercial launch of its network early next year.
The initial deployment will center on the Seoul metropolitan area and some other major cities, Business Korea reported.
The operator is working with France's Forsk, a radio wave design program company, to ensure an optimal 5G deployment.
LG Uplus is using Forsk's Atoll radio planning software to predict the movements of 5G radio waves, and is using ray tracing techniques to mitigate the unpredictability of radio waves transmitted using 5G's beamforming capabilities.
Cell design for the Seoul metropolitan area commenced in October last year and has now been completed, the report states.
But the operator does not intend to launch commercial 5G services for smartphones until 2019. In July, LG Uplus and the other South Korean mobile operators agreed to launch 5G services on the same day, expected around March next year, in order to avoid excessive competition.