South Korea's SK Telecom has begun offering LTE service using wider bandwidth in the 1.8 GHz spectrum today and plans to rapidly expand the service to the entire Seoul area by the end of October 2013.

With the additional bandwidth it acquired on August 30, SK Telecom today launched the newly enhanced LTE service in Mapo District (Mapo-gu) and is preparing to expand the service coverage to main areas of 11 major districts in Seoul by early October. After securing coverage throughout Seoul by October-end, the company plans to expand the service to the Seoul Metropolitan Area by November 2013, and then to six metropolitan cities by March 2014, before securing nationwide coverage in July 2014.

According to operator, all LTE-Advanced devices will operate on the wider LTE bandwidth while users of LTE devices on market that support 1.8 GHz (20 different models) will be able to access LTE network on this spectrum as well.