SK Telecom plans to hit hyper-speed with its new LTE-Advanced network
While LTE in the States or Europe is pretty fast, it still pales in comparison to the kind of data speeds Korean mobile users get to experience. The gulf is set to get even wider with SK Telecom, Koreas largest carrier, announcing plans to introduce an astonishingly fast 225Mbps LTE-Advanced network later this year.
Current LTE-A networks are capable of reaching 150Mbps, but the new technology SK Telecom will be introducing doubles that to download speeds we can only dream of in western markets. By contrast, here in the UK 100Mbps broadband is widely available, but even that doesn’t come close. The speed is made possible by aggregating two different bands together. Theoretically, by using three bands a top speed of 300Mbps could be possible in the future.
To illustrate how quick the new network will be, an 800MB video file will reportedly download in just 28 seconds. This on its own is almost a full minute quicker than regular LTE. As with current LTE-A networks, dedicated smartphones or tablets will be required to take advantage, with the supporting chipsets still in development. Is there any such thing as too fast?
Source: SK Telecom via TNW