South Korean mobile phone network SK Telecom has announced the launch of 225Mbps LTE-Advanced, the first time this combination of speed and technology has been made available commercially. It’s three times faster than conventional 4G LTE and fifteen times faster than 3G, which means consumers could download a 1GB movie just in 37 seconds.
SK Telecom says it’ll be offering 225Mbps LTE-Advanced at its current LTE price scheme.
The new 225Mbps speed has been achieved by combining 20MHz of bandwidth in the 1.8GHz band and 10MHz bandwidth in the 800MHz band. It follows SK Telecom’s launch of commercial LTE-Advanced service last June.
Alongside the new high-speed mobile data service, Samsung has revealed a special ‘Broadband LTE-A’ version of its Galaxy S5 smartphone for SK Telecom. This Samsung Galaxy S5 Broadband LTE-A - said to be the world’s first commercially available Broadband LTE-A (Cat.6) smartphone - can support the 225Mbps data speed. As with the original Galaxy S5, it’s running a 2.5GHz quad-core processor. However, some of the other specs are higher… including the WQHD display of 2156 x 1440 pixels, providing more detail than the HD screen on the standard S5.
Lee Jong-bong, Executive Vice President at SK Telecom and head of the company’s Network Division, said “The world’s first commercialization of 225Mbps LTE-Advanced by SK Telecom will pave the way for Korea to open up an era of 5G in the future. With ceaseless innovation of services, SK Telecom surely will elevate Korea’s status as an ICT powerhouse.”