SK Telecom, predictably enough, was the cellco which set the bar for LTE speeds last week, boosting its network to a peak download rate of 150Mbps and becoming the first operator to implement certain features of LTE-Advanced commercially. A bunch of carriers will race to follow its lead before year end, including the Japanese and other Korean players and the main US operators. European operators are generally more cautious about breaking technology barriers, partly because most still have a reasonable amount of HSPA evolution to play with before they hit the capacity ceiling. However, the UK’s largest operator, EE, was hard on SKT’s heels in delivering the 150Mbps headline speed to selected markets though ‘ just to highlight the increasingly misleading war of buzzwords around ‘LTE-Advanced’ claims ‘ it cannot advertise its new function as LTE-A.
It will double its peak download speed to 150Mbps in certain areas ‘ initially a dozen cities. Existing 4G customers, or those who sign up for LTE before September, will get this boost at no additional cost, but after that, it will carry a higher price. That will introduce an unusual concept for the UK market ‘ paying different rates according to peak speed, though that approach has been taken in some other European countries.
But this is not LTE-A. The two carriers deliver their new speeds in different ways. EE has not actually had to harness official LTE-A features ‘ those specified in 3GPP Release 10 ‘ to boost its download rate. It has cleared out additional spectrum in its 1.8GHz GSM band to create a single 20x20MHz spectrum carrier for LTE use. Delivering higher speeds by using wide channels of this kind is supported in ‘ordinary’ LTE, while SKT is achieving its wider bandwidth by aggregating two separate carriers, an item on the complex LTE-A menu of options. It is using carrier aggregation, in the sense defined in Release 10 (CA per se is not unique to LTE-A), to combine its 1.8GHz and 800MHz frequencies.
Like other cellcos such as Sprint and NTT Docomo, SKT has been pressurized into being at the cutting edge by its sub-optimal spectrum position. By contrast, many of its European counterparts have enough spectrum in a single band to support 150Mbps speeds once they believe the market demands these, and the devices are sufficiently available. They may not be able to score the PR points of advertising them as LTE-Advanced, but they have the consolation that they do not need to invest the resource and risk that SKT has done, to move their networks at such an early stage to new and little-proven techniques, which are currently delivering no more than plain European LTE can do in terms of headline data rates.
More important than theoretical speeds, to consumer uptake, is the range of devices on offer and though the iPhone’s star may have faded, it is still a big draw in many markets. So could Apple rouse itself from its current torpor and steal a march in ‘LTE-Advanced’, becoming a leader not a follower in terms of the latest network speeds?
Reports out of Korea suggest Apple is in talks with SKT to support its new 150Mbps networks, which would see the vendor, uncharacteristically, taking the lead in supporting the latest upgrades ‘ which would, in turn, indicate the pressure it is now under from Samsung and others. Apple was slow to deliver an LTE, or even a 3G, iPhone, and despite many reported talks, has still not produced a TDD smartphone for China Mobile, the world’s largest cellco.
It could change its pattern with the next iPhone, supporting the LTE Release 10 features ‘ notably carrier aggregation ‘ which SKT and others are starting to implement. By year end, several more operators, including the UK’s EE and Japan’s NTT Docomo, will enable 150Mbps peak download speeds in some markets, by harnessing aggregation.
Samsung scored a strong publicity point in its home country by ensuring a new version of the Galaxy S4 was the launch device for SKT’s new services, but the operator will add a further eight devices this year.
One could be the ‘iPhone 5S’, according to Korea Times, which quotes an anonymous SK Telecom executive as saying: ‘SK Telecom is approaching Apple to put our LTE-A technology on the upcoming iPhone 5S. We are in the middle of negotiations.’ This would give Apple the advantage Samsung and LG exploit so well ‘ using the highly advanced South Korean market to test performance and user response for a new product. The source added: ‘With the help of Apple, SK Telecom can take a lead in the race for LTE-A devices and Apple can seek breakthroughs in its stalling phone business.’
The new capabilities, as well as improved LTE multiband roaming, could be enabled by Qualcomm’s latest LTE-A modem and RF360 chip. However, if reports that the next iPhone will come on September 20 are true, it is hardly likely to sport features which have not yet been finalized. It seems more likely that Apple is discussing a variant for SK Telecom, whose technology would then go mainstream in a subsequent device (and it is certainly under pressure to release more than one new iPhone a year in future).
It would have an easier job delivering an iPhone for EE’s speeded-up network, and has already worked with the UK cellco, since the iPhone 5 supports its 1.8GHz band for LTE, but not the 2.6GHz and 800MHz options which are more commonly used in Europe. But higher speeds are not the only temptation with which EE is seeking to maximize on its LTE headstart before its rivals launch their own services. It has introduced a range of new services and packages as it tries to capitalize on the final weeks of its 4G exclusives.
The company, which was able to launch LTE ahead of rivals by refarming its 1.8GHz GSM spectrum, will see Telefonica O2, Vodafone and 3UK enter the 4G space from this summer onwards. In the meantime EE, which was criticized when it first switched on LTE for charging a premium rate, is diversifying its offering. It has introduced shared data plans and the UK’s first prepaid LTE tariff. The former allows customers to add up to four extra devices to their plan from £12 ($18) a month per smartphone or £5 per tablet. ‘Bucket’ plans where a data allowance can be used flexibly by several gadgets are seen as an important way to attract and retain customers, and drive overall ARPU.
In EE’s case, users will be lured with the simplicity of unified billing rather than with cost savings. Now that the cellco has prepaid options, they could instead take out a 4G data plan for just an extra £3 a month (though this would be tied to one device of course). The prepaid tariff starts at £15 a month for 2Gbytes of data, with the ability to pay an extra £3 for each additional 500Mbytes, up to a maximum of £30 for 10Gbytes. It is being launched with a data SIM and a dongle.
In addition, EE has introduced Cash onTap, a contactless payment service introduced in partnership with Mastercard. This currently works on three NFC-enabled handsets ‘ the Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE and S4, and the Sony Experia SP ‘ and will be accepted at retail outlets such as McDonald’s and Boots.
CEO Olaf Swantee said: ‘Our new double speed 4G technology means that we have the biggest, fastest and best network in the UK, and now the equal fastest in the world [along with SK Telecom’s). With our superfast network, we have a unique opportunity to introduce a new era of customer-friendly pricing models based on speed, and we’ll be revealing further details of this later this year.’ In June, EE said that more than 500,000 customers have signed up for its LTE service, and it was targeting one million by year end.