SKT gains 300k LTE-A subs in a month

SK Telecom and rival LG Uplus are seeking to make the most of their early adoption of LTE-Advanced.

 

Announcing its second quarter results, SK Telecom revealed it had already signed up around 300,000 LTE-A customers, just one month after launching the service. 

 

As of yesterday, SK Telecom's LTE-A network covers the entire Seoul area and central areas of 84 other cities.

 

The operator has revealed plans to further expand its coverage by deploying a total of 32,000 LTE-A base stations by the end of the year, and to launch differentiated pricing plans and services for the network.

 

For the second quarter, SK Telecom's net profit climbed 35.2% sequentially to 467.7 billion won ($418.8 million). Revenue grew 3.9% year-on-year to 4.16 trillion won.

 

The company also revealed that LTE subscribers now make up over 40% of its mobile customer base.

 

Separately, Ericsson revealed that its South Korean subsidiary, Ericsson-LG, had conducted the deployment of LG Uplus' own LTE-A network.

 

The network, which launched on July 18, is now providing both voice and data services. Ericsson-LG supplied the evolved packet core, base stations and carrier aggregation software upgrades for the rollout.

 

Ericsson and LG Uplus have agreed to collaborate on the development of LTE-A and post-LTE-A technologies, the companies said.

 

LG Uplus announced its own financial results on Monday, reporting a swing back to a Q2 profit of 81.5 billion won, despite a 24.3% year-on-year decline in revenue to 2.76 trillion won.