World’s Fastest LTE
SK Telecom will start commercializing “ultra-wideband LTE service” capable of 500 Mbps of downlink throughput by utilizing its new 2.6 GHz spectrum from next month.
An official from the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said on August 15, “We sent the letter notifying new mobile frequencies to the nation’s three mobile network operators on the 3rd. Now, the mobile carriers can freely utilize their new spectrum bands, which are assigned through the auction in the first half of the year, after they register the radio stations in the regional radio management office.
SK Telecom, the nation’s largest wireless telecommunications operator, ordered base stations to communications equipment providers as soon as it received the letter. The firm secured a total of 60 MHz in the 2.6 GHz band through the frequency auction which ended in May. This time, it will establish the base stations to make use of 40 MHz wide frequencies first.
SK Telecom aims to commercialize the world’s fastest 500Mbps LTE mobile service next month by using the 256 quadrature amplitude modulation technology, which improves the transmitting efficiency by 30 percent, in 40 MHz bandwidth of its three bands. The service is about 7 times faster than the original LTE service, and can download a 1GB movie in just 16 seconds.
KT and LG U+ will upgrade their existing base stations, igniting the competition of the world’s first 500 Mbps LTE service among mobile carriers. KT can provide 500 Mbps LTE services when it replaces some antenna equipment in its existing 1.8 GHz base stations and increase the capacity. LG U+ can also improve the speed by expanding its 2.1 GHz base stations.