Korea is widely deploying WIBro, a version of WIMAX and LTE Advanced

Korea is deploying Wibro Evolution (a version of WIMAX), which is expected to provide speed 10 times fasters than the apparent 3G networks. This version of Wimax is expected to provide 120 Mbps downlink and 60 Mbps uplink. Yota and Samsung will begin the trail of 802.16m Wimax in the end of 2010.

The current version of Wibro is being expanded to 82 cities in South Korea which would then cover 85% of the population. The current version of Wibro has a top speed of 40.32 mbps.

Korea Communications Commission said it will begin establishing LTE wireless networks ahead of the official introduction of 4G technologies in the country’s metropolitan areas starting from the latter half of this year

It will also inject a total of 193.5 billion won ($173.3 million) by 2014 to support establishing infrastructure for the technologies, like creating a global mobile cluster in Gumi, Daegu of North Gyeongsang Province, which tests and accredits the new and advanced technologies.

Going a step further, the government will invest 15 billion won and 6 billion won each in the Web and virtualization skills as development funds.

In a related effort, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy will also devise a plan by June on the nation’s research and development strategy that will direct how to deal with the mobile communications technologies beyond 4G in 2012-2019.

LTE-Advanced will have a peak speed of 600 mbps and will begin deployment in Korea by 2014. LTE-Advanced enables users to download 700 MB-sized video file in 9.3 seconds

In Korea, KT (Korea Telecom) offers Wave 2 (18.4 Mbit/s, 4 Mbit/s) for $22 a month with 30 GB data usage. The service coverage is nationwide, including Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi-do, and Daegu. SK Telecom offers Wave 2 WiBro Service for $18.87 a month with 30 GB data usage.

The WiBro plan is part of KT’s scheme to create a mobile wonderland, meaning it will build a total network for its fixed-line and wireless services by 2014. The country’s top fixed-line service operator pledged in July to invest 5.1 trillion won ($4.31 billion) for the project which is expected to meet the rising mobile data usage as an increasing number of people are owning multiple gadgets.

In a related effort, the company has moved its WiBro network onto the standard of 10 megahertz (MHz) WiMAX channel width, up from 8.75 MHz, to improve service quality by up to twofold.

South korea is also targeting 1 GBPS internet fiber into all homes by the end of 2012. Hong Kong also has been offering 1 Gbps internet for a few years now.

I had some wireless and fixed line communication speed predictions from 2006.

Wireless superbroadband (50-1000Mbps) 2009-2012
Fiber to the home (100Mbps-1000Mbps) 2010-2015
Nextgen communication (1000Mbps-10000Mbps) 2013-2020

There are also deployments of wimax and LTE-A in the rest of the world (although a bit slower and usually a bit after the korean deployments.

In Canada, Bell announced it was the first wireless company in North American to deploy leading-edge Dual Cell technology, which doubles the speed of HSPA+ mobile data service from up to 21 Mbps to as high as 42 Mbps.

So a Dual cell system for current Wibro would be 80 Mbps.

It looks like the Wireless superbroadband is happening at the 60-120 mbps range with initial Wibro Evolution deployments and will beat the end of 2012 part of the prediction. The fiber to the home prediction is also easily being met with Korea and other places. Nextgen communication prediction is being met with the 1 Gbps bottom end but hopefully Korea will push on to even faster speeds on their fiber. Once the fiber to the home is deployed, it will not be that difficult or expensive to ramp up the other hardware in the network for faster speeds.

Singapore has worked out a more cost efficient optical fiber network that go to 10 gbps and use fewer lasers.

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