SK Telecom offers unlimited LTE data to subscribers

South Korean operator SK Telecom is offering unlimited LTE data to customers subscribing to a monthly fixed rate plan of KRW80,000 ($75) per month or above. The operator has announced three tariffs that offer unlimited LTE data, voice calls and SMS messages.

Subscribers to the operator’s T&All 75+Unlimited Data Option, T&All 85 and T&All 100 plans can take advantage of the unlimited data, calls and messages at no additional cost and without having to sign up to the upgrade. There are around one million subscribers on these plans according to the operator; it has a total of 27.4 million subscribers, according to the latest figures from Informa’s WCIS.

After exceeding 8GB of data usage in the case of LTE T&All 75+Unlmited Data Option subscribers, 12GB for LTE T&All 85 subscribers and 16GB for LTE T&All 100 subscribers, users will be entitled to 2GB of LTE data per day but performance thereafter will be dependent on available network resource, SK Telecom said.

The operator also plans to launch two further unlimited data bolt-ons: Unlimited Data Option for Commuters and 24-Hour Data Double Option.

The Unlimited Data Option for Commuters plan gives users unrestricted access at peak hours–7am to 9am and 6pm to 8pm–at a monthly fixed rate of KRW9,000.

SK Telecom said data consumed during these hours accounts for as much as 20 per cent of its total daily traffic. The average commute in South Korea is estimated to be 55 minutes and the number of people who spend more than an hour travelling to work has increased 35 per cent over the last decade, according to Statistics Korea and the Korea Transport Institute.

The 24-Hour Data Double Option add-on, priced at KRW 3,500, allows the user to be charged for just 50 per cent of the data they use within 24 hours of activating the service. SK Telecom said that this option is suitable for subscribers who need immediate short term access to high volumes of data, to watch sports games in ultra high definition or download large files.

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“SK Telecom has decided to introduce unlimited LTE data plans as well as optional plans designed for specific needs in order to further enrich customer’s mobile experience,” said Yoon Won-young, EVP and head of marketing.

“We will continue to carefully study our customers’ interests and needs, and analyse their usage patterns to come up with better products and services that deliver greater value and benefits to our customers.”

In January, SK Telecom announced it has successfully developed LTE-Advanced tri-band carrier aggregation technology to ease network congestion in built up areas in South Korea. It followed the announcement by announcing plans to extend its LTE and LTE-A networks by building additional base stations using the 1.8GHz band by the end of this year.

Then in February, the operator launched a platform that it says will provide real time information on what its customers are doing. The Context Platform uses data collected by a customer’s smartphone via its camera, GPS, sensors and wifi to discover contextual information about that subscriber.