South Korea world’s fastest LTE 1.17Gbps

[ahhming]

South Korea’s largest telecommunications firm, KT Corp., said  it would commercialize the world’s fastest mobile network, called the GiGA LTE, which combines the current Long Term Evolution networks with Wi-Fi connections.

 

The new network service offers a maximum download speed of 1.17 Gbps --15 times faster than the existing LTE and four times faster than the tri-band LTE-Advanced, the fastest wireless network currently available in the Korean market.

It also boasts an upload speed 10 times faster than that of the tri-band broadband LTE-A.

With firmware updates , users of Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge will be able to use the faster LTE services, according to a KT official.

Around five to six more high-end and mid-end Samsung handsets, compatible with the GiGA LTE, will be released in the latter half of this year along with some LG Electronics handsets,” the KT official said.

Source:

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150615000893

[TheAmazingCookieFromSquare]

Isin't 10gbps the fastest?

[Guest]

Isin't 10gbps the fastest?

LTE wireless..

[ahhming]

Isin't 10gbps the fastest?

yes but this is using LTE technology

[wyattzx]

Because 3ms ping on Starcraft II wasn't low enough.

 

Kidding. LTE wouldn't be used for professional gaming, so please don't reply-shank me. 

[Lethal Seraph]

Here I am, stucked with my pos DSL with 3mbps, any cable company's wanting to charge like $5k for installation. FML. I'd like to live in a universe where NASA's 91Gbps is available in my bathroom to say the least.

[Toddwjp]

i wish the western goverments of the world had the same approach to technology as the Asian ones, cept china, 

[skywake]

I'm wondering how fast it actually is. I mean claimed mobile speeds are inflated as they are but this is also combining it WiFi. Because when they say "1.9Gbps" on the box of a wireless product we already know that they mean "500Mbps in basically ideal conditions". If we're still at the point where a high end wireless card is only pulling 500Mbps with the highest spec wireless gear? I doubt we're at the point where you can pull 1.2Gbps from a phone.....

 

Not that 500Mbps wouldn't be impressive if that's what they can get out of it. I wouldn't be that surprised either given that going above 100Mbps is well within reach even with 4G. But I'm sceptical until I see actual numbers from real world tests with a live deployment. At least in South Korea they have the infrastructure in place that this is even potentially feasible.

[xtroria]

It's crazy to think that south korea used to be so poor 60 years ago and now they have the fastest internet in the world, meanwhile many people who live in US the country that fed south korea's economy still can't have internet that's faster than 50Mbps

[UnknownEngineer]

We just switched to 4G, literally yesterday, I was supposed to start getting downloads in the 40Mbps region (as my brother had than on a fuking phone), but I have so far been able to get half of that, at best. I am actually getting less than on the landline most of the time, below 5Mbps.

 

Fuck my ISP.

[Bouzoo]

And here I'm happy with 20-ish Mbps. Also is there a phone that can even use that kind of speed?

[ahhming]

And here I'm happy with 20-ish Mbps. Also is there a phone that can even use that kind of speed?

 

yesSamsung’s Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge with  firmware updates 

[mr moose]

And to think people where trying to dismiss wireless as an alternative to broadband because of BS excuses like network congestion and basic narrow minded views of future advancements. South Korea currently have what? 20Million people on mobile internet?

[Bouzoo]

yesSamsung’s Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge with  firmware updates 

How did I miss that in the post  :unsure:

And yeah, that actually makes sense.

[Guest Generallee]

It's crazy to think that south korea used to be so poor 60 years ago and now they have the fastest internet in the world, meanwhile many people who live in US the country that fed south korea's economy still can't have internet that's faster than 50Mbps

 

This happened

 

 

Meanwhile

 

[PortentousLad]

that's it, I'm moving to Korea as soon as I'm able.

[skywake]

And to think people where trying to dismiss wireless as an alternative to broadband because of BS excuses like network congestion and basic narrow minded views of future advancements. South Korea currently have what? 20Million people on mobile internet?

Well the LTE spec is rated at "300Mbps" but if you look it up the real world speeds average something closer to around 15-25Mbps. And as more people get 4G compatible devices that average speed decreases. If you were an early adopter of a 4G compatible device in a small city you probably got to experience quite a bit more speed than what you'll get now. Next year it'll likely be slower than this year.

 

Compare that to proper fibre infrastructure which can deliver 100s of Mbps to each building. Infrastructure that the tech being talked about here also relies on. And it's then at that point that you put a fancy access point in and connect to that. The whole point of this tech is to use existing infrastucture to bring the wireless "towers" closer to the end user. It's not magic and it's no coincidence that this is being talked about for South Korea and not South Sydney.

 

As I said earlier, it'd be interesting to see how well it actually performs once its deployed and people start using it. I wouldn't buy too much into the PR speak.

[Guest]

I don't even get 10 Mbps on my 4G-LTE... Damn it Sprint.

[mr moose]

Well the LTE spec is rated at "300Mbps" but if you look it up the real world speeds average something closer to around 15-25Mbps. And as more people get 4G compatible devices that average speed decreases. If you were an early adopter of a 4G compatible device in a small city you probably experience quite a bit more than what you'll get now. Next year it'll likely be slower than this year.

 

Compare that to proper fibre infrastructure which can deliver 100s of Mbps to each building. Infrastructure that the tech being talked about here also relies on. And it's then at that point that you put a fancy access point in and connect to that. The whole point of this tech is to use existing infrastucture to bring the wireless "towers" closer to the end user. It's not magic.

 

As I said earlier, it'd be interesting to see how well it actually performs once its deployed and people start using it. I wouldn't buy too much into the PR speak.

 

We all know fibre to the home is better (will be for a long time) but that's not the point, the point is people are using short sighted and in many cases fallacious arguments. People where saying a few years ago that wireless would never work because population.  Except that congestion is not the problem they made it out to be and SK is living proof.  Speeds are increasing all the time. This is not the first time 10Gb/s has been considered in national broadband role out plans.  

[.spider.]

5G Massive MIMO

 

So they are calling it 5G and I am stuck with 3G and because of data cap there is no benefit to use 4G

[shirokado]

Well the LTE spec is rated at "300Mbps" but if you look it up the real world speeds average something closer to around 15-25Mbps. And as more people get 4G compatible devices that average speed decreases. If you were an early adopter of a 4G compatible device in a small city you probably got to experience quite a bit more speed than what you'll get now. Next year it'll likely be slower than this year.

Compare that to proper fibre infrastructure which can deliver 100s of Mbps to each building. Infrastructure that the tech being talked about here also relies on. And it's then at that point that you put a fancy access point in and connect to that. The whole point of this tech is to use existing infrastucture to bring the wireless "towers" closer to the end user. It's not magic and it's no coincidence that this is being talked about for South Korea and not South Sydney.

As I said earlier, it'd be interesting to see how well it actually performs once its deployed and people start using it. I wouldn't buy too much into the PR speak.

The difference between Lte services in the US and South Korea is that south Korea has cell towers every kilometer. Literally. You literally have 5 bars everywhere.

[Trik'Stari]

That's insanely fast for wireless.

 

Why can't we have this everywhere else?

[skywake]

We all know fibre to the home is better (will be for a long time) but that's not the point, the point is people are using short sighted and in many cases fallacious arguments. People where saying a few years ago that wireless would never work because population.  Except that congestion is not the problem they made it out to be and SK is living proof.  Speeds are increasing all the time. This is not the first time 10Gb/s has been considered in national broadband role out plans.  

But congestion is a problem especially if you go and dump ALL internet usage onto a mobile network. The solution that the article is talking about understands that fact completely. They're making performance better by moving people OFF "mobile" and onto smaller "towers" using WiFi. In terms of what that'd mean for a residential space? Well basically they're running fibre all the way to around 20m from where you are and then having you connect to an access point. Outside of a city basically what that'd involve would be running fibre to the house and using wireless AC.

 

Tech is improving all the time to work with the limitations that exist because of physics. What the tech isn't doing is breaking the laws of physics and coming out with magic. People a few years ago were right. Like it or not fixed line networks aren't going anywhere. We might want to hide away from them and pretend we're "on mobile" with some technical wizardry but ultimately if we want more speed it'll involve moving fibre closer to the end user. End of story. Because physics.

 

The difference between Lte services in the US and South Korea is that south Korea has cell towers every kilometer. Literally. You literally have 5 bars everywhere.

Signal quality and performance aren't one and the same when there are multiple users. The bandwidth is shared. It's not unlike how you can have a wireless access point with one user on it hammering it and that one person will get decent speed. But if you had two people hammering the network? Four? Ten? The speed will tank. It's just how wireless tech works whether it's WiFi, LTE or whatever. It's shared.

 

Anyways, for some actual numbers a quick googling and I found this page. If you dig into that page you can see some reports showing what the speeds they had recorded at various points in time. If you dig into it you you are right, South Korea is well and truly in the top spot in terms of 4G coverage. But not for speed, they're in the middle of the pack for speed. Purely because speed is a function of coverage AND the number of users on a tower. Japan appears to be the classic example, second best coverage but well and truly at the other end and more on par with the US for speed.

 

The reason the tech in the OP's article works is because it's all about reducing the size of the "tower" and therefore reducing the number of people sharing it. Smaller, faster towers within the larger network. Not unlike how your wireless access point has 5G for "fast" and 2.4G for "coverage". They've been talking about this tech for years and basically it's just a fancy way to kick people off mobile and onto WiFi.

[TroubleKlef]

We all know fibre to the home is better (will be for a long time) but that's not the point, the point is people are using short sighted and in many cases fallacious arguments. People where saying a few years ago that wireless would never work because population.  Except that congestion is not the problem they made it out to be and SK is living proof.  Speeds are increasing all the time. This is not the first time 10Gb/s has been considered in national broadband role out plans.  

 

Except South Korea is smaller than the state of Kentucky. I'm sure if all (heck even 25%) of American resources (both governmental and private) were competing in Kentucky, we'd have similar if not better broadband.

[zacRupnow]

Isin't 10gbps the fastest?

This is LTE, as in for phones. Not sure what the fastest is for Ethernet but 10Gbps is available.