S. Korea's 5G mobile users to sue SK, LG, KT over poor network quality

South Korea's 5G smartphone users are suing the country's three major telecom operators at least a million won per user for spotty connection and the poor quality of the latest generation network.

As of Thursday, around 1,000 5G smartphone users have expressed intent to take part in the collective lawsuit against SK Telecom Co., LG Uplus Corp., and KT Corp., .

According to Kim Jin-wook, a lawyer at a law firm spearheading the legal action, the 5G network quality does not offer a discernible improvement from 4G LTE networks and has drawbacks, such as limited availability.

Carriers initially advertised 5G download speeds as 20 times faster than 4G LTE but were later found to be just four times faster.

Kim said the lawsuit, which comes amid years of user complaints will be filed in May after gathering more participants.

As of November last year, the three telecom operators have deployed 166,250 5G base stations, which is 19 percent of the number of 4G base stations.

Carriers are aiming for nationwide 5G coverage by next year. It currently centers around major urban areas, such as Seoul,

The Korea National Council of Consumer Organizations, a consumer advocacy group, last October recommended carriers to pay as much as 350,000 won in compensation to users who filed for mediation over mediocre 5G service quality.

As of January, the country had 12.87 million 5G subscriptions, accounting for 18.2 percent of the total 70.69 million mobile network users, according to ICT ministry data.

Telecom operators recently rolled out cheaper 5G plans, aiming for faster user migration from previous generation networks. Subscribers to 4G networks accounted for the majority of total mobile network users at 73 percent in January.