More than 1,000 5G subscribers in South Korea planned joint legal action against mobile operators over what they claim are slow data rates and poor coverage, Yonhap News Agency reported.

The group plans to file a class action lawsuit in May after adding more users to a complaint. It is seeking at least KRW1 million ($885.15) in compensation per subscriber who on two-year plans from SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus, the news service wrote.

Kim Jin-wook, a lawyer managing the case, claimed the quality of 5G services doesn’t meet expectations, with slower than advertised data rates and coverage limited to major cities despite the service costing more than LTE plans.

The operators had a combined 166,250 5G base stations at end-November 2020, representing 19 per cent of the 4G site count, Yonhap News Agency stated, citing data from Opensignal.

In June 2020, Korea’s Ministry of Science ICT and Future Planning began testing the quality of 5G services in parts of major cities following complaints and contract cancellations.

The operator’s combined 5G subscriber count was 11.8 million at end-2020, around a fifth of all mobile connections, GSMA Intelligence data showed.