KT said its subscribers for advanced LTE network have reached 8 million.
Korea’s No. 2 mobile carrier said on Monday.
“By last week, the total number of our LTE customers reached 7.98 million. We are adding more at a faster pace,” said the statement.
KT is the last telecom operator joining the advanced service among the nation’s three major carriers. It started its LTE service in January, 2012. However, KT has beaten LG Uplus since June in terms of total customers.
Its LTE customers numbered six million as of June, up from four million in January 2013 and one million in June 2012, the statement added.
According to data from the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP), market leader SK Telecom had 13 million LTE customers in November, while LG Uplus had 7.1 million by December 2013.
“This is mostly due to the expansion of our LTE services across the nation since late last year. We are trying to expand our LTE coverage in cities nationwide. KT is vowing to use the 1800MHz frequency for the LTE-Advanced (A) service and we are also working to build an additional LTE-A network by using 900MHz, separately,” said its spokesman.
With the rollout of its fourth-generation (4G) networks, the spokesman said it is more convenient than LTE-A using carrier aggregation, as LTE customers would have to buy additional handsets to receive LTE-A services.
“It’s interesting to see customers in their 20s and 30s, who are mostly data-sensitive, shifting toward our LTE service. KT will be consistent in offering user-friendly billing systems and various customized content,” said the spokesman.
KT is ideally positioned to push the LTE service, which is a key bread-and-butter issue to all carriers, as it has been the country’s dominant fixed-line operator.
KT additionally secured the 15MHz and 1.8GHz frequency bands, respectively, for $813 million in a recent bandwidth auction by the MSIP, Korea Times reported.
Those new bandwidths will be aggregated with an adjacent KT-held bandwidth to allow LTE-A services without much additional cost.
KT’s LTE-A services will offer downlink speeds of up to 150Mbps, while existing LTE users can access up to 100Mbps without changing their device.
