South Korea’s largest mobile network operator in terms of subscribers, SK Telecom (SKT), has said that it has witnessed an increased demand for its fourth-generation services, the Korea Times reports. With SKT having inaugurated commercial Long Term Evolution-based (LTE-based) services in July 2011, company spokesperson Kim Ji-won noted: ‘We don’t have any big questions that 4G-based LTE will become the dominant competitive technology in the mobile industry by the end of 2012.’
Such is the confidence in the technology that the cellco has revealed that it now expects to complete its nationwide LTE rollout by April 2012, eight months ahead of its previously announced schedule. Such expansion is also expected to drive subscriptions further, with one unnamed SKT representative cited as saying: ‘When the LTE network is established in 84 cities around the country, subscription will grow explosively.’ SKT had previously indicated that it aimed to have signed up 500,000 customers to its LTE offerings by end-2011, and it is thought likely that it will achieve this target; SKT currently has around 260,000 LTE subscribers, and one out of three of its new subscribers are opting for 4G tariffs, accounting for around 15,000 new LTE customers every day.
Alongside the network expansion, SKT has also confirmed plans to adopt advanced technology with a view to ensuring a stable network despite rising demand for data, including the development of LTE femtocells by the end of 2011. The cellco meanwhile also plans to set up one million upgraded repeaters in buildings and basements so that users access the LTE infrastructure in more locations. Dubbed ‘Advanced-SCAN’, the technology is a cloud-based service which, it is claimed, enhances the speed and capacity of LTE networks.