SK Telecom, arguably the first operator in the world to launch LTE-Advanced services, is building on this early momentum with plans to add more bandwidth to increase speeds further.
The operator has announced that it will use the 35-MHz of 1800-MHz bandwidth secured in an auction last week to add wider spectrum channels to its LTE networks, starting in Seoul by the end of 2013.
SK Telecom will employ carrier aggregation to combine its extended 1800-MHz and 800-MHz holdings, upgrading its LTE-A network to a theoretical peak speed of 225Mbps by next year.
The company also revealed it will introduce an mobile plan offering 2GB of mobile data allocation per day.
SK Telecom launched LTE-Advanced services in late June, and had expanded the service to the central areas of 84 cities by end-July after signing up 300,000 customers in the first month. The company aims to build a total of 32,000 LTE-A base stations by the end of the year.
NSN yesterday separately revealed that its Flexi Multiradio Base Stations are being used in the LTE-A rollouts of all three South Korean mobile operators.
“Our collaboration with SK Telecom, LG U+ and Korea Telecom over the years has given us a deep understanding of one of the world’s most advanced LTE markets,” NSN executive vice president of mobile broadband Marc Rouanne said.
LG U+ launched LTE-A on July 18, while KT plans to go live with services this month.