SK Telecom to launch a LTE test network in the ocean

SK Telecom, South Korea's biggest telco, is planning a test network for maritime communications using Long Term Evolution. This supports high-speed wireless telecommunications on ships located approximately 60 miles from shore.

The technology will serve to enhance navigation safety for small ships that have poor communication and safety system compared to large vessels. This is  part of a research and development project led by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) of the Asian Country.

SK’s LTE subscribers accounted for 62.6% of the firm’s overall mobile subscribers. and the plan is to deploy the test network by May 2016 in the East Sea of Korea.

According to RCR Wireless: “SK Telecom launched LTE service in July 2011, commercialized 150-megabit per second updates in June 2013 and 225 Mbps LTE-Advanced in June 2014 through carrier aggregation. The Asian telco also launched 300 Mbps tri-band LTE-A CA at the end of June 2015.”

South Korea has the faster average connection speed of the world, with 23,6 Mbps and a high peak of 79.0 Mbps. U.S. has a 11.9 Mbps average speed and a peak of 53.3 Mbps. This is way FTTH programs are getting more popular and lot of cities demand better service.