SEOUL, KOREA - Lee Suk-chae, Preseident of KT Telecommunications has announced, (KT) will be the first in Korea to start a ‘Broadband LTE-A’ service and set a global standard of 1.8GHz ‘gold frequency’ 20MHz bandwidth in mid-September of this year.
KT has connected 1.8GHz 20MHz bandwidth to the existing 1,840 ~ 1,850 MHz bandwidth which will increase the LTE-A speed to 150Mbps (download speed). For KT telecommunication users, LTE-A phones will reach a maximum of 150Mbps doubling the previous limit and the standard LTE phones will reach a maximum speed of 100Mbps.
Instead of the CA (carrier aggregation, frequency collecting technology) service which combines two different frequencies to attain the LTE-A standard speed, the ‘Broadband LTE-A’ service adds and adjoins to the single frequency of the standard LTE-A service. Furthermore, the use of the CA system requires a LTE-A phone to have an exclusive chip but as for KT’s improvements was by adding a frequency, the ‘Broadband LTE-A’ service does not only increase the speed of the LTE-A phones, it also increase the speed of the LTE phones. Existing 6.5 million users of the KT’s LTE service can benefit from the ‘Broadband LTE-A’ without having to purchase an LTE-A phone.
Smartphone batteries to last approximately 28% longer as the broadband method use one frequency for transmission whereas the CA method uses two different frequencies for transmission. Also, if 84 industries from 45 countries around the world adopted the ‘Global Standard 1.8GHz’ frequency usage, it will not only easily expand the roaming service worldwide, the selection of LTE phones will broaden as LTE phones bought from other countries can be operative.
KT plans to utilize the 1.8GHz instruments constructed over all areas in Korea to provide the Broadband LTE-A service. KT has six times more base stations than other CA companies and they will leverage their ten thousand base stations to leave no areas uncovered, and provide a dense provision of the Broadband LTE-A service. Furthermore, the application of the Broadband LTE-A service on the repeater of the base station can be immediate and which will be a big plus for KT over their excellent competitors.
KT plans to provide this service in mid-September starting with Seoul regions first, then move Seoul and other metropolitan areas (including Incheon) in August. In order to abide by the restrictions and conditions on service coverage in Korea, Broadband LTE-A service will expand to all metropolitan cities by March 2014, and expand to all regions in Korea by July 2014.
Currently, KT is providing ‘2x’ (double) customer service of data, membership, fees and content areas for the benefit of KT telecommunication users. To increase their service to their customers, from September 1 to October 31, KT will also ‘2x’ (double) the data limit on all the individual LTE contracted users to provide them the opportunity to use and enjoy the KT Broadband LTE-A service. With this, the existing users whom are using the double data service fee, ‘Wire or Wireless Completely Infinite’ and ‘Everybody Olleh’ account to approximately 1,980,000 users. Including these users, there will be in total 6.5 million users in total who will be able to enjoy the ‘2x’ (double) data benefit. Also, to maximize the Broadband LTE-A service, Olleh TV mobile for Mobile IPTV will be upgraded to the Full HD quality service and to the 5.1 channel high-quality service. Additionally, KT plans to expand the contents viewable to 17,000 to the Olleh TV and Olleh TV Mobile for the users to seamlessly enjoy the contents.
