The Swiss operator and Elisa (Finland) announce roaming, and Swisscom with South Korea’s SK Telecom.
Swisscom’s customers with a 5G-enabled mobile phone can access the 5G data network in Finland from tomorrow and in South Korea before the end of July.
South Korea is widely acknowledged to have one of the most advanced 5G rollouts, with more than 62,000 antennas and about 1.64 million active users.
Finland and Switzerland are leaders in Europe. “We were amongst the first countries to start building 5G networks in Finland. Now that Swisscom has opened their 5G network, we are more than happy to be able to provide the ultrafast 5G to our consumer and corporate customers travelling to Switzerland”, said Elisa’s Director, Consumer Handset Subscriptions, Jan Virkki.
Dirk Wierzbitzki, Head of Product and Marketing and member of the Swisscom Group Executive Board, said, “We want to offer our customers the best network — both in Switzerland and abroad.
“We are proud to be one of the world’s first providers to offer 5G abroad. We will continue to expand 5G availability abroad with additional partners”.
International partners
BICS, a division of Belgian operator Proximus, says it established the world’s first intercontinental live 5G data roaming link between Swiss operator Swisscom and South Korean carrier SK Telecom on 15 July.
According to BICS, this marks a major milestone in establishing 5G roaming around the world. The 5G roaming service relies on BICS’ 5G global IPX network.
BICS says international 4G roaming increased by increased by 95% in 2018, which was almost double the growth rate in 2017. There appears to be an insatiable appetite among subscribers for seamless international connectivity.
Mikaël Schachne, CMO and VP Mobility & IoT Business, BICS, commented, “With over 50% of global data traffic exchanged over our global IPX network, BICS offers an unrivalled roaming coverage and quality to communication service providers around the world; [the] successful implementation of a trans-continental 5G data roaming relation further endorses our position at the forefront of global mobility for people, applications and things.”