South Korea's SK Telecom has started upgrading its existing LTE network to LTE-Advanced and conducted a field test under real network environment using a smartphone. Operator plans to commercialize LTE-Advanced service within September 2013 to enable faster data speeds.

Company has announced its 2013 1Q earnings results and on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, SK Telecom's revenue increased by 3.6% backed by strong growth of LTE subscribers and new businesses. SK Telecom surpassed the 10 million LTE subscriber mark on April 21 and expects to see continued LTE subscriber growth which is projected to reach 15 million by the end of 2013.

SK Telecom has completed nationwide LTE deployment covering 99 percent of the nation's population in July 2012 and already applied LTE technologies like Multi Carrier, LTE Femtocell, Downlink CoMP (Coordinated Multi-Point) and SON (Self-Organizing Network).