SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM) today announced that it has completed the development of ’Wi-Fi Integrated LTE Femtocell,’ which provides both LTE and Wi-Fi services simultaneously.

Femtocell is an ultra-mini base station that improves indoor coverage and handles data traffic concentrated in small areas so as to enable high speed and quality service by increasing the amount of data each user can send/receive.

The strength of the Wi-Fi Integrated LTE Femtocell is that - as it is comprised of both LTE femtocell and Wi-Fi Access Point (AP) - it can significantly reduce equipment installation and operating cost.

Moreover, it can be installed in places where power availability is a problem by applying POE (Power over Ethernet), which allows power transmission along with data over Internet.

In general, given the limited frequency resources, femtocells and cellular base stations use the same frequency band, often resulting in lower service quality caused by interferences between the frequencies within the band. Due to such limitation, femtocells were only installed in places not covered by cellular base stations or in suburban households to expand wireless coverage. However, SK Telecom successfully removed the obstacle by applying a technology that minimizes interference between frequencies and developing a technology that separates voice and data signals. 

Wi-Fi Integrated Femtocell minimizes shadow areas including indoors and underground and thereby offers customers with high quality LTE service.

SK Telecom plans to build LTE networks in 84 cities across the country by April 2012, eight months ahead of schedule, after which it will utilize Wi-Fi Integrated Femtocells to boost its service quality.

Wi-Fi Integrated LTE Femtocells will be first deployed in densely populated regions focusing primarily on central commercial areas of major cities where LTE traffic and users are concentrated, and then be expanded to areas with high data demand – i.e. indoor areas like shopping centers, offices, houses, and school, etc. - measured by an analysis on LTE service usage patterns in order to provide the best service quality unmatched by competitors. 

Kang Jong-Ryeol, Head of Network Technology Center of SK Telecom said, "SK Telecom has already installed over one million repeaters to expand LTE coverage including indoors and underground areas and will continue to enhance its LTE service quality by installing Wi-Fi Integrated LTE Femtocells. Furthermore, SK Telecom will keep on developing and providing femtocell technologies suitable for many different environments so as to create an optimal data communication environment for customers."

Meanwhile, in April 2011, SK Telecom also became the first in the world to develop and commercialize ’Wi-Fi Integrated WCDMA 2FA Femtocell’ to supplement its 3G network coverage.