South Korea's SK Telecom has started expanding installation of base stations to use 10MHz bandwidth from 2.1GHz band for LTE from May 7 in certain areas in Seoul, Gwangju and Busan. The company already built an LTE test-bed for 2.1GHz band in Busan last February.

Operator is building 2.1GHz LTE base stations to realize 3 band LTE-Advanced network. according to SK Telecom, using a combined 40MHz bandwidth (downlink) from 800MHz, 1.8GHz and 2.1GHz bands, the 3 band LTE-Advanced network will enable LTE services at speeds of up to 300Mbps.

SK Telecom will apply software package for 3 band LTE-Advanced to base stations before the launch of handsets, with which the company will become fully prepared for the service. Industry experts expect the handsets to come to market by the end of the year.

Until the capable handsets are released, the company will apply 3 band Multi Carrier (MC) technology for its LTE services.