On October 1, SK Telecom (SKT), South Korea’s largest telecom operator, said that it has successfully demonstrated Uplink Multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO), a multi-antenna technology that accelerates data upload speeds, for the first time in the nation.
To demonstrate Uplink MU-MIMO, SKT and Ericsson have recently equipped an LTE base station with eight receiving antennas and uploaded data simultaneously via multiple terminals. The result: the application of Uplink MU-MIMO increased data upload speeds by 40 percent, on average.
Two companies plan to launch Uplink MU-MIMO, which promises upload speeds 4 times faster than existing speeds, sometime next year after completing the sophistication of Uplink MU-MIMO.
Uplink MU-MIMO is a technology that improves data upload speeds by equipping LTE base stations with multiple antennas. This technology can be achieved at the cost of additional hardware, i.e. antennas.
For instance, in theory, equipping an LTE base station with eight antennas could result in an eight-fold jump in data upload speeds. However, in reality, data upload speeds is projected to be four times faster than previous speeds due to radio-frequency interference (RFI).
SKT said that “The successful demonstration of the technology is significant in that we’ve laid the groundwork for the revitalization of upload-centric services.”
