By Cho Mu-hyun
SK Telecom announced Wednesday that it had launched its voice over long-term evolution (VoLTE) service.
The service, which SK Telecom branded as ``HD Voice,’’ moves voice calls from third generation (3G) networks to upgraded LTE ones and promises a significant improvement in voice and video call quality.
The frequency bandwidth is 2.2 times wider than 3G voice calls, allowing wider sound transmission and a connection time that can be shortened to up to .25 seconds, SK Telecom said in a statement. Speech quality is improved by using a 507,000 Hertz voice band compared to 3G’s 302,400 Hertz.
“Customers feel as if the person on the other end of the line is right next to them (when they use VoLTE),” said SK Telecom spokesman Lee Jun-seo. “Our adapted multi-rate wide band codec allows sounds that were previously inaudible to be transmitted perfectly. True 100 percent sound transmission has been realized. This is a milestone.”
Lee highlighted the technological innovation of the service and promised “customers will know the difference right away and will be immensely satisfied.”
The firm will charge the same rate for the latest voice call service as it did for the 3G one. Users will pay 1.8 won per second, and is directly available to users who own an LTE phone without a new subscription.
“SK Telecom has become the leading business in LTE through the commercialization of the world’s first HD Voice services,” said Bae Joon-dong, head of SK Telecom’s network business division. “We will continue to revolutionize LTE services by providing various services using HD Voice so that our customers can have a more comfortable mobile life.”
SK Telecom boasts of a nationwide network infrastructure that covers 99 percent of the population that makes it an optimal carrier. The company started investing and building LTE networks in June last year, and currently has over 4 million subscribers, the most out of domestic telecommunications companies. The firm expects the number of users to jump to 7 million by the end of the year.
Two handsets can utilize the service: Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S3 and LG Electronics’ Optimus LTE 2.
Rival LG Uplus’ started its VoLTE service the same day, while KT is expected to launch it within next month.