As overseas telecom companies are gradually terminating their 3G services, interest is also growing regarding the early termination of domestic 3G services.
According to the telecommunications industry on the 18th, SK Telecom recently announced that it will terminate the China Unicom 3G roaming service as of the 31st of this month. This is in line with China Unicom's termination of 3G services in China, meaning that from next year, domestic 3G users will no longer be able to access 3G through China Unicom while they are there. However, they can still use China Mobile, which continues to provide 3G services.
Starting the same day, 3G users of KT, which also provides 3G services in the country alongside SK Telecom, will also lose access to China Unicom's 3G services. In April, SK Telecom had already suspended the roaming service due to the termination of 3G services by Japan's SoftBank.
Overseas telecom companies are in the trend of gradually terminating their 3G services. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile in the U.S., and KDDI and SoftBank in Japan terminated their 3G services in 2022, while Europe’s Deutsche Telekom ended operations even earlier in 2021. As the usage of 4G (LTE) and 5G becomes more prevalent, the decrease in 3G utilization is leading to a push to streamline operations to improve efficiency in expense and energy.
According to this trend, there is speculation that South Korea may also early terminate its 3G services, which are originally scheduled to end by December 2026. This is due to the rapid decline in the usage rate of 3G services recently, as well as the need for new business drivers for telecom companies, such as artificial intelligence (AI).
According to the Ministry of Science and ICT’s report on the status of wired and wireless communication service subscriptions and wireless data traffic statistics, the number of 3G users at SK Telecom, KT, and Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) combined was 748,395 in October last year. This figure has been steadily declining, dropping to 671,010 in January this year. After entering the 500,000 range for the first time in July, the number of 3G users as of October is only 563,842. In the same month, the total number of communication service lines was 56,965,545, showing a decline to less than 1% of the total.