SK Telecom launched the world’s first LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) service through smartphones.
The LTE-A service offers download speeds of up to 150 Mbps, which is two times faster than its regular LTE service, and 10 times faster than its 3G network. LTE-A coverage initially is available in Seoul and central city areas of Gyeongg-do and Chungcheong-do. Expansion to 84 cities nationwide is planned.
At top speed, LTE-A users can download an 800MB movie in just 43 seconds.
The LTE-A implementation leverages several advanced mobile network technologies including Carrier Aggregation (CA) and Coordinated Multi Point (CoMP). SK Telecom plans to implement Enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (eICIC) in 2014.
CA supports up to 150 Mpbs speed by combining two 10 MHz components carriers to form an effective bandwidth of 20 MHz. The company said further advancements should yield rates up to 300Mbps speed by aggregating two 20MHz component carriers by 2015, and become capable of combining three component carriers by 2016. An uplink capability using carrier aggregation should also be possible by 2016. The current CA standards allow for up to five 20 MHz carriers to be aggregated.
SK Telecom is offering LTE-A service at LTE prices. Customers will not have to pay more for the faster service.
Samsung’s Galaxy S4 LTE-A smartphone is the first compatible device It will come in two colors, red (exclusively available at SK Telecom) and blue. The operator has secured an initial supply of 20,000 units of Galaxy S4 LTE-A. SK Telecom expects to have seven LTE-A devices on offer later this year.
SK Telecom’ LTE-A phones will feature embedded services like ‘Safe Message’ and ‘Safe Data Backup’. Safe Message is designed to protect users from smishing (SMS phishing) attacks by enabling them to check whether the message is sent from a trusted source; and ‘Safe Data Backup’ enables users to upload personal data stored in their smartphones to the cloud server to keep data safe from smartphone loss and accidental deletion. The company also plans to mount these features on all its to-be released LTE phones as well.
Some additional network service innovations from SK Telecom:
- SK Telecom is launching a group video calling service for up to four users. The service, an upgraded version of the 3G network-based multi-party video conferencing service, will support 12 times better video quality and 2 times clearer audio quality.
- SK Telecom’s ‘Btv mobile,’ an IPTV service with 550,000 paid subscribers, will begin providing full HD (1080p resolution) video streaming service, for the first time in the world, from early July. Full HD video streaming requires a speed of 2Mbps or above, which is well supported by the LTE-A network.
- The company will also launch ‘T Baseball Multiview,’ to enable users to watch two different games on one screen in July 2013. T Baseball is a free, real-time professional baseball game broadcast service optimized to the LTE network. Launched in August 2012, the service is currently enjoyed by 1.1 million users.
- SK Telecom plans to launch ‘T Freemium 2.0,’ a free multimedia content package that offers three times more contents – e.g. dramas, TV entertainment shows, music videos, sports game highlights, etc.- than its previous version, ‘T Freemium,’ in July 2013.
- SK Telecom plans to launch a new HD video-based shopping service in August 2013 to make shopping more fun and convenient for customers. Users will be able to seamlessly watch 6 different home shopping channels on one screen.
- SK Telecom’s online/mobile music portal service MelOn just opened a new service category to allow users to listen to original CD quality music by downloading Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) files.
- SK Telecom will hold a large-scale contest named ‘LTE-A i.con’ to boost the creation and provision of diverse innovative contents and applications optimized for the LTE-A network.