South Korea Launches LTE-Advanced [Mobile Radio]

South Korea Telecom announced that it became the first operator in the world to commercialize long-term evolution-advanced (LTE-A) services using 10 MHz of bandwidth in the 1.8-GHz band and 10 MHz of bandwidth in the 800-MHz band. The LTE-A service offers up to 225 Mb/s of speed by aggregating 20 MHz of bandwidth in the 1.8-GHz band and 10 MHz of bandwidth in the 800-MHz band. The operator has also gained authorization to operate the 35-MHz bandwidth (20 downlink + 15 uplink) in the 1.8-GHz band. Korea Telecom (KT) also announced the roll out of LTE-A services using ?bandwidth in the 1.8-GHz range. KT plans to launch the service in four towns in Seoul (Gangnam, Seocho, Junggu, and Jongro) and six cities nationwide (Busan, Inchen, Daejeon, Daegu, Guangju, and Ulsan), and it will be gradually expanded into other cities. KT?s LTE-A services offer speeds of up to 150 Mb/s, and the 6.5 million existing LTE users can also use up to 100 Mb/s without changing their device. Wireless service ?provider LG U+ also announced the deployment of a LTE-A network in South Korea.