SK Telecom dominates LTE market

SK Telecom's employees hold up various smartphones supporting LTE to celebrate the firm reaching 7 million subscribers for the latest network service at its headquarters in downtown Seoul.

By Cho Mu-hyun

Korea’s largest mobile carrier SK Telecom is expanding its long-term evolution (LTE) service portfolio to cement its dominance in the local market.

As a significant market player, it has been commercializing various LTE technologies to lure consumers hungry for data-intensive services – games, videos and chat – to ensure fast and stable connections.

Among the 35 million smartphones owners in Korea, more and more consumers are now leaning towards fourth-generation (4G) LTE and moving past third-generation (3G). Industry observers estimate that by the next year, more than half of all handset owners will be using LTE-enabled ones.

Mobile phone operators are competing fiercely to acquire as many subscribers as possible because the telecommunication market’s growth will stagnate next year due to equalized specifications in handsets and network advancements.

However, SK Telecom states that there is not a setback in its plans to ensure dominance in the future due to higher than expected demand for its LTE services.

The initial goal was to acquire 5 million LTE subscribers early this year, which was adjusted to 7 million and achieved in early December, reflecting the skyrocketing demand from consumers for seamless data usage.

It has the most members of the highly popular network in the world, only behind Verizon in the U.S. and Japan’s NTT Docomo.

An aggressive marketing campaign and a commercial release to back it up have especially fueled its subscription base starting in July, when it released a multi carrier (MC) for the first time for a domestic mobile carrier.

MC uses two frequencies to support the 4G connection – a 1.8 gigahertz and an 800 megahertz spectrum – with handsets receiving radio signals via the less busy one. It works best in metropolitan areas where data traffic is the most intense. It was launched in July, the first among local carriers. Eventually, more frequencies will be added to realize carrier aggregation (CA). CA will combine spectrums to increase data download speed per se.

“Simultaneously with our commercial launch, we have released advertisements focused on showing the effects that MC has for consumers using LTE,” said SK Telecom spokesman Kim Dae-woong. “It has been received well. Our popularity in LTE is reflected well in the growth rate of the second half of this year.”

SK Telecom said that the purchasers of the recently released iPhone 5 will especially feel the difference that MC makes because the handset official supports all of the company’s spectrums for LTE.o.kr