SK Telecom today announced that it expanded the coverage of its LTE-A Pro services – providing up to 700 Mbps to 900 Mbps speeds – to 75 cities and 31 counties in Korea.

■ 5 band CA

Since introducing the world’s first five-band CA* LTE-A Pro service in June 2017, SK Telecom has aggressively rolled out the service in main areas of Seoul, Chungcheong and Yeongnam regions by August 2017. Then, in September 2017, the company has expanded the coverage of its five-band CA LTE-A Pro service to major cities in the Jeolla Provinces such as Yeosu, Naju, and Gwangyang, and populated cities of Gangwon Province, including Wonju, Gangneung and Sokcho, to enable more customers to experience the faster and more stable mobile service.

* five-band CA enhances data transmission speed and performance by aggregating five component carriers. SK Telecom’s five-band CA LTE-A Pro service supports up to 700 Mbps data rates.

■ 4x4 MIMO

Moreover, SK Telecom has also expanded the coverage of its 800 Mbps - 900 Mbps LTE-A Pro services by combining three/four-band CA and 4X4 Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output (MIMO) technologies. SK Telecom’s subscribers can experience up to 900 Mbps data throughput in major commercial districts throughout Korea, including Gangnam, Hongdae, Sinsa (Garosu-gil), Yeouido, Jamsil, Myeondong, Jongno in Seoul; Seomyeon in Busan; Dongseongno in Daegu; Chungjangno in Gwangju; Samsan-dong in Ulsan; Daejeon City Hall; Gochang and Wanju in North Jeolla Province; and Gwangyang, Naju, Boseung, Yeosu, Yeongam and Haenam in South Jeolla Province.

SK Telecom’s LTE-A Pro services can be enjoyed by users of premium smartphones embedded with Exynos 9 mobile chipset, including Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8. Furthermore, users of other devices will also be able to experience improved data speeds affected by the distribution of data traffic and network optimization.

Going forward, SK Telecom said that it will continue to increase the coverage of its LTE-A Pro services and expects to realize 1 Gbps or faster data rates with the evolution of smartphones.

“Though the increased coverage of the LTE-A Pro services, SK Telecom is providing a differentiated network experience to more customers,” said Choi Seung-won, Senior Vice President and Head of Infra Strategy Office. “We will continue to expand our LTE-A Pro services to make sure that our customers are provided with the best network quality at all times.”