Verizon in the US and SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus in South Korea launched their 5G services in the first week of April. While the debate over who among them was the first to launch 5G continues, South Korea, with one of the world’s top smartphone penetration rates, seems to have its nose ahead and is hoping that 5G deployment will spur breakthrough in fields such as smart cities and autonomous cars, and drive its economic growth. India, however, continues to be a long way off from all that, with the Department of Telecom (DoT) expecting the world’s second-largest