South Korean carrier SK Telecom has started using Multi Carrier (MC) technology in its LTE network commercially to offer faster LTE services. Operator plans to cover the whole Seoul area within 2012 and 23 other major cities by early 2013.

SK Telecom had started MC pilot service by enabling use of both 800MHz and 1.8GHz frequency bands in the area from Gangnam Station to Kyobo Tower Crossroads since May 30, earlier this year. SK Telecom had planned to  complete the optimization of handset-network interworking and handover between frequencies during the MC pilot service period.

The company developed MC technology to utilize both its existing 800MHz frequency band and the 1.8GHz band it newly acquired in the second half of last year. With an additional 20MHz uplink/downlink spectrum, it will be using a total of 40MHz for its LTE services.

The use of 1,8GHz frequency band will allow SK Telecom to offer LTE roaming service in many different countries. Currently, around 10 countries in Asia and Europe have chosen the 1.8GHz band for LTE services and it is expected that more and more operators around the world will use 1.8GHz, a GSM frequency band, for LTE.

Operator has already embedded the MC feature in Vega Racer 2 released in May 2012 and is currently in talks with device manufacturers to include MC as a basic feature for LTE smartphones. Existing users of Vega Racer 2 can receive automatic firmware upgrade by authorizing the process via responding to the text message sent to them.