In November in Seoul, the autumn is full of enthusiasm, and the cozy, coy and cowardly cosmos adds a romantic touch to late autumn. But after catching a drizzle, the wind trembles again. Fortunately, I experienced the local 4G service along the way, and the speed is so fast that people are full of blood.
To return to the truth, just as the domestic 4G emerged, Tencent Technology went to South Korea, which has the highest penetration rate of LTE users in the world, to find out from multiple dimensions such as enterprises, markets, and users. How LTE development here is at the forefront of the world. In this article, let ’s first understand the latest developments in LTE development in South Korea.
In 2009, the world's first 4G trial commercial network was launched in Sweden. So far, 4G development has been in the past three years. According to the development status of the global 4G LTE network released by GSMA at the end of August this year, there are currently 206 commercial LTE networks deployed in 79 countries around the world, and operators in 10 countries / regions have announced the construction of 52 LTE trial networks. Global 4G users have exceeded 100 million.
South Korea has been providing LTE services since 2011, and is mainly undertaken by three operators, SK Telecom (SKT), Korea Telecom (KT), and LGU + (merged by LG's three telecommunications companies), all of which use FDD-LTE.
Qualcomm ’s senior manager of business development in Korea, Brian ha, told Tencent Technology that SKT and LGU + announced the provision of LTE services from July 2011, and related mobile phones were listed in September and October respectively, so the official LTE service time in South Korea is from September At the beginning, the end of the year after March, LTE users exceeded 1.2 million, accounting for 2.5% of the total mobile users. At that time, China was still in the stage of popularizing 3G smartphones.
Since the beginning of 2012, with the addition of KT, all three South Korean operators have provided LTE services, and have also started a battle for LTE users and market share. It is understood that South Korea's LTE users exceeded 16 million by the end of 2012, and it is expected to exceed 28 million by the end of this year.
On the current market scale, Brian ha also said that SKT has the highest market share in South Korea ’s LTE market, reaching 48%, with LGU + and KT sharing the remaining share; the overall mobile communication market share SKT accounts for 50%, and KT exceeds LGU + by 10% To 30%.
The large-scale commercialization of LTE naturally promoted the rapid popularization of Korean smartphones. Up to now, the penetration rate of smart phones in South Korea is close to 70%, of which LTE phones exceed 50%, mainly based on Samsung, LG and Pantech.
It is worth mentioning that the three operators are also stepping up network transformation while the battle is going on.
At the end of June this year, SKT achieved commercial use of the LTE-A network. In July, LGU + LTE-A was put into commercial use. In September, KT's LTE-A network was also put into commercial use. At a time when LTE networks around the world have not been promoted, the three major mobile operators in South Korea have all entered the LTE-A era. As an upgrade to 4G LTE, the LTE-A service data download speed can reach up to 150Mbps, which is twice the speed of the existing 4G LTE network.
It should be noted that from LTE to LTE-A, South Korean operators did not choose a way to upgrade technology, but by increasing the number of spectrums. Unlike China's spectrum planning, South Korea's spectrum resource operators can bid through capital.
Qualcomm Korea Vice President Te-Won Lee told Tencent Technology that the leadership of leading operators and the promotion of market competition have played an important role in promoting the rapid development of LTE. Secondly, the optimization of the basic network is also crucial.
At present, South Korea has the highest LTE penetration rate, covering 62% of the population, ranking first in the world. 21% of Japan ranks second; Australia 21% ranks third; the United States 19% ranks fourth.
Why is there such a high penetration rate? What attracted users to move to LTE? This deserves our in-depth discussion.
Guangzhou Ehang Electronic Co., Ltd. , https://www.ehangmobile.com