Two of Asia's early LTE movers, SingTel and SK Telecom, have both announced new 4G milestones.
SingTel revealed it has achieved Singapore-wide mobile coverage with its LTE network, after spending S$150 million ($120.8 million) on the rollout in the past year.
The operator said its network now provides dual-band nationwide street-level coverage for 95% of the island, and dedicated indoor coverage in around 550 buildings.
SingTel has also started doubling the top speeds of the network in some commercial buildings to 150 Mbps, through the use of MIMO technology.
CEO Consumer Singapore Yuen Kuan Moon said the company had signed up around 300,000 LTE subscribers since commercially launching services for smartphones in June last year. “We believe that the majority of our mobile customers will be 4G users by 2015.”
SingTel launched dongle-only LTE services in December 2011.
Separately, SK Telecom this week revealed it has reached 10 million subscribers on its own LTE network, which launched in July 2011.
It took SK Telecom over three years to reach 10 million subscribers on its 3G W-CDMA network, and just a year and nine months to hit the same milestone for LTE.
LTE customers now account for 37% of SK Telecom's total subscriber base. The operator aims to reach 15 million LTE subscribers by end-2013.
The LTE network covers 99% of the South Korean population. SK Telecom revealed this month that it plans to commence an upgrade to LTE-Advanced from September.