SK Telecom has successfully demonstrated a core LTE-Advanced technology named Transmission Mode 9 (TM-9) under partnership with Ericsson, operator announced today.  TM-9 defines the way of transmission between mobile devices and base stations. It has been chosen as a new LTE-A specification by 3GPP in June 2011. Operator has already demonstrated other LTE-Advanced features CA and eICIC technology in 2012.

The development and demonstration of TM-9 began in October 2012 under global R&D partnership between SK Telecom and Ericsson. The results of the demonstration showed that TM-9 was able to increase data transmission rate of mobile devices by 10 to 15 percent in areas of inter-cell interference.

In mobile network environment, data transmission rate decreases in boundary areas between base stations and overlapping areas covered by multiple adjacent base stations. Therefore, telecommunications companies are developing diverse technologies to minimize inter-base station interference and enhance network stability.

SK Telecom said it developed TM-9 to build an optimal network environment by expanding base station capacity while minimizing interference between base stations in response to the upcoming LTE-A environment where data transmission speeds and capacity will become of greater importance.

TM-9 allows base stations to distinguish mobile devices and send different demodulation reference signals (DM-RS) to each mobile device located within the coverage area. In addition, each base station uses its unique channel information reference signal (CSI-RS) to communicate with devices.