South Korean mobile operator SK Telecom has commercially launched tri-band LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) Carrier Aggregation (CA) service. Starting 29 December, SK Telecom’s tri-band LTE-A service will offer data speeds of up to 300 Mbps by aggregating three component carriers in three different frequency bands: 20MHz bandwidth in 1.8GHz band, 10MHz bandwidth in 800MHz band, and 10MHz bandwidth in 2.1GHz band.
Up to now, SK Telecom has been providing LTE-A services by aggregating two carriers. It initially launched 150Mbps LTE-A service by aggregating 10MHz bandwidth in 1.8GHz band and 10MHz bandwidth in 800MHz band in June 2013, and began 225Mbps Wideband LTE-A service by aggregating 20MHz bandwidth in 1.8GHz band and 10MHz bandwidth in 800MHz band in June 2014. SK Telecom developed tri-band LTE-A CA technology in January 2014 and demonstrated the 450Mbps tri-band LTE-A by binding three 20MHz bands at the Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona in February.
SK Telecom has already secured Wideband LTE-A coverage in main areas of all 84 cities nationwide, which means the operator has in place 800MHz and 1.8GHz base stations; thus it can offer tri-band LTE-A service by adding 2.1GHz base stations. SK Telecom intends to deploy over 26,000 2.1GHz base stations within the first quarter of 2015 to service its customers in Seoul/ Seoul Metropolitan Area, central areas of all cities nationwide as well as all subway lines in Korea.
Galaxy Note 4 S-LTE, the first tri-band LTE-A capable device in SK Telecom’s portfolio, will initially be sold to a limited group of consumers who wish to use the service ahead of others and provide feedback on issues including its performance (e.g. speed, transmission stability, etc.) and convenience features. SK Telecom subscribers will have access to the new service at the same price as LTE.
