LTE Coverage Battle

The three domestic three mobile carriers are competing to increase the fourth-generation LTE speeds and expand service regions at the same time.
The three domestic three mobile carriers are competing to increase the fourth-generation LTE speeds and expand service regions at the same time.

 

The nation’s three mobile carriers are competing to increase the fourth-generation LTE speeds and expand service regions at the same time. This is because the companies think that they need to ultimately expand high-speed LTE service regions in order to gain an advantage over the quality competition, though they will launch a commercial service of the 5G network in 2019 at the earliest.

According to industry sources on May 23, the three mobile carriers will not be able to run nation-wide 5G services right after the launch because it costs a lot to establish networks. It means that users can be offered with more stable services when they have high LTE speeds and wider service areas outside 5G service regions. Given the fact, the three mobile service providers are planning to aggressively expand its service areas as well as to improve LTE speeds.

The companies now uses the carrier aggregation (CA) technology, which basically bonding together different signals from varying frequencies, to widen the bandwidth, and the 256QAM technology, which improves data transmission efficiency by 33 percent. In addition, they are improving their LTE speeds further by converging the 4×4 MIMO technology, which can double LTE speeds by incrasing the number of antennas of devices and base stations from two to four. With the 256QAM technology,

LTE speeds can increase to 100 Mbps from the current 75 Mbps in the 10㎒ narrowband in terms of single-sided download and to 200 Mbps in case of the 20㎒ broadband. When applying the 4×4 MIMO technology to the broadband, LTE speeds can reach 400 Mbps.

SK Telecom owns five LTE frequency bands in terms of current download – 800㎒ frequency with the 10㎒ narrowband, 1.8㎓ frequency with the 20㎒ broadband, 2.1㎓ frequency with the 10㎒ broadband, and 2.6㎓ frequency each with the 10㎒ narrowband and 20㎒ broadband. The company will start providing 700 Mbps of speeds in Seoul and metropolitan cities across the nation through the five-band CA from the end of this month. It will also expand it to major cities in the nation by the end of this year. SK Telecom is now testing the speed of 800 Mbps, which converges the four-band CA and one 4×4 MIMO, and speed of 900 Mbps, which converges the three-band CA and two 4×4 MIMOs in core business districts in major metropolitan cities, such as Seoul, Gangnam, Hongik University and Seomyeon in Busan. Considering users’ response, the company is planning to expand its service areas. 

KT can combine four frequency bands including 900㎒ of narrowband frequency and 2.1㎓ and 1.8㎓ which are one broadband and narrowband frequencies. The company currently offers the transmission speed of 700 Mbps by applying the 4×4 MIMO to the broadband frequency in the four-band CA. It also plans to provide the speed of 700 Mbps in Seoul and major metropolitan cities in South Korea and expand the services to 85 major cities by the end of this year.

LG U+ recently succeeded in demonstrating the speed of 900 Mbps by applying the 4×4 MIMO technology to 2.1㎓ and 2.6㎓ bandwidths which are broadband frequencies. The company currently provides the speed of 700 Mbps, which converges the three-band CA and the 4×4 MIMO technology, in Seoul and major metropolitan cities in the nation and will expand the service to 85 major cities by the end of this year. It also plans to gradually expand the900 Mbps service area.

However, the three mobile carriers will not support their maximum LTE speeds throughout the nation. The companies think that the speed with the two-band and three-band CAs is fast enough to use in regions other than major cities.

 

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