Competition for #1
Three mobile carriers are competing to take the initiative in the world’s first tri-band LTE-A service, which is expected to be commercialized as early as late this month.
The new mobile service offers connection speeds of up to 225 Mbps by putting together a 20 MHz band in the 1.8 GHz range and a 10 MHz band in the 800 MHz range. It only takes 1 minute and 25 seconds to download an 800 Mb movie using existing LTE services, and 43 seconds with the LTE-A services. The tri-band LTE-A service, on the other hand, allows mobile devices to download the movie in 28 seconds.
According to industry sources on June 15, three carriers are currently negotiating with handset makers such as Samsung Electronics to launch this tri-band LTE-A service nationwide. The service is likely to be commercialized during this month.
The mobile telecommunication industry is ready to provide the service. It already conducted tests to optimize the tri-band LTE-A network and upgraded existing base stations.
Smartphone manufacturers are also expediting the launch of new models. Samsung recently revealed various test results at home and abroad that herald the introduction of the Galaxy S5 Prime. LG, which recently released the G3, is gearing up to unveil a new line of smartphones that support the new service. Pantech is also going to showcase a new lineup, totally different from the recently-unveiled Vega Iron 2 or its Vega Secret line.
In the meantime, with the release date for smartphones using the tri-band LTE-A service approaching, there is growing concern about the side effects related to a shortened product life cycle. Existing products that were introduced to the market only a few months ago can become old models in a relatively short period of time. On top of that, the absence of services or content suitable for faster network speeds is raising questions about whether or not the service itself will be popular among consumers.