The world's first consumer LTE-Advanced network is now live and it's living up to lofty expectations. During an SK Telecom event in Seoul, South Korea, officials demonstrated the technology using the previously announced Galaxy S4 LTE Advance.
As the name suggests, LTE-Advanced is the successor to what many of us have access to today with our wireless carriers. The key difference that the new network brings to the table is speed - and lots of it. Demo phones on hand during the media event were able to hit speeds of 102Mbps on the download side.
As The Verge points out, that's more than 10 times faster than the average broadband connection in US homes and more than twice as fast as the fastest LTE speeds I've seen on my own device around town.
What's more, we're told that LTE-Advanced can support even higher speeds. The network's maximum theoretical speed is 150Mbps down and 37.5Mbps up but perhaps the most important aspect - at least for local users - is that the network will be provided to customers without a fee increase.
SK Telecom said they plan to launch seven devices in total that will support LTE-Advanced by the end of the year which includes the aforementioned S4 LTE Advanced. That phone is available as of writing in red and blue with other color options in the pipeline.
So when exactly will this technology reach the US? Unfortunately it's probably still years away as several major carriers are still working to deploy 4G LTE.