SK Telecom intends to showcase its LTE Advanced three-band carrier aggregation technology next month during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, delivering download speeds of 450 Mbps by aggregating three 20 MHz bands.
Further, the South Korean carrier just unveiled LTE-A technology that enables the aggregation of three component carriers using two different bandwidth sizes to offer speeds of up to 300 Mbps. SK Telecom, South Korea's largest mobile operator, told Mobile World Live the three different frequency bands it used were 20 MHz at 1.8 GHz, 10 MHz at 800 MHz and 10 MHz at 2.6 GHz.
"With the successful development of this technology, customers will be able to experience the fastest LTE-Advanced speeds once the related chipset and devices are developed," the carrier said. It added that the global standardization process for LTE-A three band carrier aggregation is ongoing, but industry experts have forecast the technology will be commercialized by year's end.
Mobile World Live, citing the Yonhap news agency, said LG Uplus, South Korea's No. 3 mobile operator, also intends to launch three-band carrier aggregation this year, combining 40 MHz in the 2.6 GHz band, 20 MHz at 800 MHz and 20 MHz at 2.1 GHz.
In June 2013, SK Telecom rolled out the world's first LTE-A network offering carrier aggregation of two 10 MHz bands with a commercial smartphone for use with the service. The LTE-A service enabled the operator to support downlink data speeds up to 150 Mbps, twice the 75 Mbps it was delivering over its LTE network without aggregation
Operators in South Korea and other markets have also rolled out dual-carrier aggregation to deliver faster speeds and added bandwidth. Further, vendors and operators have engaged in numerous demos over recent months to highlight the higher data speeds that can be achieved by aggregating two 20 MHz bands.
For more:
- see this SK Telecom release
- see this Mobile World Live article
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Article updated Jan. 20, 2014, to include additional information.