SK Telecom planning commercial LTE network for next year
By Chris Ziegler 
posted July 15th 2010 6:38PM
posted July 15th 2010 6:38PM
South Korean networks -- which have historically gone neck-and-neck with Japanese ones for deploying ridiculously advanced tech before anyone else -- are just a touch slow on the LTE uptake, though not by much. SKT is looking to deploy its first commercial LTE network sometime in 2011 in Seoul on its way to a nationwide rollout in 2013, which means they'll be trailing Verizon and TeliaSonera, just to name a couple (to be fair, archrival KT is apparently on track for a late 2010 launch, so this year's 4G hopes aren't entirely lost). In the meantime, SKT hopes to take some pressure off its 3G infrastructure by beefing up its WiFi footprint, a tactic similar to the one AT&T's been using stateside for a while now. Given the choice, we'd still take LTE over WiFi... but hey, a few hotspots never hurt anyone.
Also, to be fair, SK has more wi-fi hotspots per capita than any country and growing...combine that with the fact that smartphone penetration is *extremely* low and there wasn't a need to push LTE. Lastly, as the US carriers that have been slow to adopt 4G (Tmo) discount 4G as you can get 4G like speeds, consider that SK has the most complete per capita 3G network and faster than the competition then you might realize how incremental this really is along with the low utilization of it if it were available today and we'd see why the money is a bit slow to come into the game in SK.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't SK Telecom push for Sprint to get former Nextel CEO Tim Donahue to replace Gary Forsee as Sprint's CEO? And didn't SK Telecom try to sweeten that deal by offering up to $5B in order to help Sprint build out WiMAX nationwide? And didn't SK Telecom already have their own WiMAX network already in place called WiBRO?
Guess WiMAX really is becoming a dead technology quickly...being replaced by LTE in short order apparently.