[Photo provided by LG Uplus Corp.]

South Korea’s No. 3 mobile carrier LG Uplus Corp. on Monday has started the preliminary 5G roaming mobile services for its 5G subscribers visiting China in partnership with the country’s state-run wireless carrier China Unicom.

The official launch is due on later this month when the Chinese company officially kicks off the new generation network service across China, according to LG Uplus on Monday.

China Unicom has tested out its own 5G network service in seven major Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou since May and expanded it to 40 cities in August based on 17,000 base stations countrywide.

LG Uplus joined forces with China Unicom in April for the 5G roaming service and tested out own services in China from June. The preliminary service was launched after the two companies completed linking their networks on Aug. 16.

The LG Uplus 5G roaming service is now available for LG V50 ThinQ smartphone users only and soon will be expanded to Samsung Galaxy S10 and Note 10 users with firmware updates, said LG Uplus.

Customers currently are able to experience the service at the same cost of LG Uplus’ LTE roaming service as part of promotional perks. A separate cost policy will be released after the company launches the service in other countries and analyzes compiled users’ data.

LG Uplus offers its 5G roaming services now in China and Finland only.

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