SK Telecom rewarded for LTE-A service
Cho Kyu-sung, right, an executive at SK Telecom’s network technology research center, poses after winning an award at the Telecom Asia Awards for the company’s tri-band LTE-A wireless service in Korea. The event took place in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday. / Courtesy of SK Telecom
By Kim Yoo-chul
SK Telecom said Thursday that it won the “Most Innovative Telecom Project” for commercialization of tri-band LTE-A at this year's awards for telecom companies in Asia.
The Telecom Asia Awards is an annual event organized by telecommunications and IT media to honor telecom companies that provide high-quality services in Asia. This year's awards ceremony took place in Jakarta, Indonesia.
SK Telecom said the project is a category that recognizes the most influential technology in the market.
“Judges acknowledged our efforts to provide the best network experiences to customers with continuous LTE technology development and tri-band LTE-A commercialization,” the company said in a statement.
Park Jin-hyo, head of network technology research center at the company, said, “We will continue to develop innovative network technologies and services to provide our customers with the best mobile experience.”
It started servicing the tri-band LTE-A service last year, which the company claims realizes speeds of up to 300 megabits per second (Mbps) by integrating three carriers of different bands via carrier aggregation technology.
Mbps is a measure of data transfer speed. A megabit is equal to one million bits.
Also, it has completed building a total of 26,000 units of 2.1 gigahertz (GHz) base stations and upgraded repeaters installed throughout the nation to expand its coverage and to increase the stability of its tri-band LTE-A service.
Now, its tri-band LTE-A service is available in the country's 85 major cities.
SK Telecom plans to add 5,000 units of 2.1GHz base stations across the nation by August to set itself further apart from other mobile carriers in terms of tri-band LTE-A service coverage and quality, while enhancing the level of customer satisfaction.