“The Galaxy S10 5G in South Korea is facing trouble with shifting from 5G to LTE networks”
Last week, Samsung launched the Galaxy S10 5G in South Korea at a starting price of $1,220. This is the first commercially available 5G smartphone in the world and promised to deliver blazing fast download speeds. However, the first few users who purchased the new phone, are now complaining of connectivity problems, slow data speeds, and other issues. Some users are also complaining that they aren’t able to switch from 5G to LTE networks.
According to a new report by Business Korea, one of the main issues with the new Galaxy S10 5G is its inability to provide good 5G connectivity. Users are also facing an issue with switching networks. For example, those trying to switch to a 4G LTE network from an unusable 5G network, are facing constant disconnection. Even after restarting their device, the phone wouldn’t connect to a 4G network or keep disconnecting.
Galaxy S10 5G customers are facing these issues across all carriers in South Korea. Samsung released a software update after users started complaining of this issue, but that hasn’t helped in any way. Most users are still facing issues when switching to 4G networks, even after installing the update. 5G to 4G transition should be seamless, but that’s not the case. The phone has one 4G antenna and one 5G antenna, so when there’s bad 5G connectivity, it should automatically switch to 4G. Therefore, this seems like more of a problem with an incomplete 5G infrastructure, than the phone itself.
However, both Samsung and the telcos in Korea have been pointing the finger at each other. While Samsung is blaming the telcos, the latter is saying that they haven’t seen any problems with connectivity. Carriers such as LG U+, KT, SK Telecom, and others are denying problems from their side. Samsung states that it has included all the software for easy network transition and connectivity.
At the end of the day, it seems like the problem currently lies with the 5G connectivity. It remains to be seen if it is ready for mainstream use yet. The network doesn’t seem to be optimised and that can be the reason for all the signal drops, poor data, delay in network recognition, and more.