South Korea's smallest mobile network operator, LG Uplus, demonstrated LTE in Unlicensed spectrum (LTE-U) for the first time in country, according to Business Korea. The LTE-U technology, originally developed by Qualcomm, is designed to be deployed in the same 5GHz unlicensed spectrum as WiFi, promising up to 600 megabits-per-second (Mbps) data transmission and provide a seamless user experience, better capacity and coverage.
The new LTE-U technology utilizes small cell solutions and RF transceivers to take advantage of the unlicensed 5GHz spectrum that are typically used for WiFi and Bluetooth connections to aggregate bandwidth and increase download speeds for end-users. The 5GHz spectrum represents a higher frequency than is used in typical cell phone towers, allowing high transmission capacity .
The company said that it has combined the 60-megahertz (MHz) bandwidth in the 5.8 GHz spectrum and 20 MHz bandwidth in the broadband LTE spectrum using carrier aggregation technology. The operator plans to expand the use of the 5.8 GHz unlicensed spectrum to 80 MHz bandwidth, up from 60 MHz, to realize 750 Mbps data download speed.
Completing the verification process on advanced carrier aggregation technology that supports up to 800Mbps data download speed, the Operator intends to commercialize the LTE-U network once handsets that support the faster transmission speed are rolled out in the market.
Lee Sang Min, Head of Service Development Division, LG Uplus
We took a big step forward in the LTE technology race again by realizing the 600-Mbps, the fastest data transmission speed used in a commercial mobile network, following the world's first development and demonstration of a LTE-U network. We will come up with diverse LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) technology to raise network speed and quality for customers despite increasing data traffic.
