S. KOREA TELCOS LAUNCH WORLD'S FIRST VoLTE

By PCWorld published on August 7, 2012.

So far, Samsung's Galaxy S III and LG's Optimus II are the only smartphones in the market ready for VoLTE technology, but that's not stopping South Korean network carriers from racing the develop the world's fastest LTE at a frequency bandwidth of 50--7000 hertz compared to a 3G voice call service that is optimized for a 300--2400 hertz voice band. The service will also shorten call connection time down to a quarter of a second, compared to an average of five seconds on 3G, Kim said. The carriers will charge the same rates for VoLTE service as for the current voice calls at 1.8 Korean won per second (US$.09/minute). 

Due to the country's high penetration of smartphones and users' growing thirst for data-heavy multimedia content, the local operators' competition to offer speedy and reliable connections has been more intense than in other countries. So far, Korean mobile carriers are about a year ahead of other global players in the LTE market.