WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.
SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest mobile operator, today demonstrated its LTE services, confirming that the new network will commercially launch in the country’s capital city, Seoul, in July. Initially the operator will offer subscribers data modems, but it expects to have a “rich 4G LTE handset line-up” in place – including smartphones and tablets – within the second half of the year. SKT plans to expand its LTE coverage to 23 cities “as soon as possible” and provide nationwide coverage (82 cities) by 2013.
By this point, it is scheduled to start upgrading its LTE networks to LTE-Advanced (LTE-A). During its demonstration, SKT said the new network was five to seven times faster than its current 3G infrastructure, enabling an 800MB movie to be downloaded in 1 minute 25 seconds. It added that the technology would support the “great rise in demand for high-definition content and multi-player network games” in South Korea. Once fully commercialised, LTE will be able to handle three times more data traffic on 10MHz of spectrum compared to existing 3G WCDMA networks, the operator said.
On the technical side, SKT said its LTE deployment would utilise a cloud-based network technology called Smart Cloud Access Network (SCAN) which will allow it to flexibly handle mobile data traffic that varies by time and region. The network will also feature Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) technology to prevent “base station interference and abrupt call disconnections,” and will use LTE femtocells to enhance underground and indoor coverage. Because the network will be deployed at 800MHz – the same band as SKT’s earlier 2G CDMA network – it can reuse the operator’s existing 2G repeaters, to boost radio signals to improve quality and coverage.
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