World’s first ‘4G-plus’ speed to launch in South Korea

20 Jan 2014

While people in Ireland are still heralding the arrival of 4G to the Irish market with faster broadband speeds, South Korea has already moved on to launching its ultra 4G (LTE-A) with SK Telecom later this year.

South Korea is renowned for being at the forefront of internet technology with speeds that consistently out-pace European and American speeds.

Now SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest mobile provider, has announced it will be introducing its LTE-Advanced speeds, which can rack up speeds of 300Mbps and will allow users to download full-HD films in less than 30 seconds.

The hyperspeed broadband is achieved through its 3-band, which combines a 20MHz bandwidth with two 10MHz bandwidths.

Four times faster than 4G

This will make it about four times faster than current 4G, which has a download max speed of about 75Mbps.

However, South Korean telecom companies haven’t finished just yet.

At this February’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, SK Telecom has also announced it they will be showcasing an even more incredible LTE-A capability which uses three 20MHz bandwidths that will reach speeds of nearly 450Mbps.

“With the successful development of LTE-Advanced 3 Band CA, SK Telecom further strengthens its global leadership in telecommunications technologies,” said Park Jin-hyo, senior vice-president and head of Network Technology R&D Centre at SK Telecom. “SK Telecom will continue to make strenuous efforts to provide unmatched service quality and speeds, which will lead to the overall advancement of the global telecommunications industry.”

The first LTE-A services will begin to hit the South Korean market in late 2014, so Irish speed-freaks may need to wait until at least 2015 before mobile users see a similar service reaching Irish shores.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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