SK Telecom is showing off its latest ICT technologies such as 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE), using Expo 2012 Yeosu as its stage. 

Yoon Jong-jin, head of SK Telecom's public relations team, said the nation’ s largest telecom provider is offering full-fledged LTE coverage of the Expo site and its host city in Jeollanam-do, while the company’ s pavilion is showcasing the ubiquity of the Internet age to become one of the most popular ones in the Expo, which is expected to attract more than 10 million visitors during the three-month run.  

SK Telecom said on May 20 it has provided an aggregate 6.1 billion won worth of LTE terminals and communications costs to help the 1,000 Expo staff conduct the seamless operation of the Expo.

This past March the telecom provider had already equipped the exhibition halls of the Expo, the railroad and road with the LTE network and reinforced the 3G network to brace for a flood of traffic to secure the mobile communication coverage capacity of up to 150,000 visitors, 1.5 times the expected 100,000 average visitors per day, particularly when special mega events and the closing ceremony take place.

SK Telecom has 179 base stations and 82 remote radio units in place to offer LTE coverage to the exhibition area of about 250,000 square meters. The company has built 288 access points in areas with an expected high use of cellular and data traffic to cover the whole city of Yeosu, an area strewn with 350 small islands.

About 30 SK Telecom crews are on stand-by mode around the clock to monitor the network and repair radio interference and fix other communication woes. 

SK Telecom has built the communication infrastructure for the Expo under a deal SK Telecom and SK C&C jointly signed in 2010 with the Organizing Committee for Expo 2012 Yeosu. A special “MIMO” (multi input, multi output) base station is also installed near the exhibitions and the venues of events, which are expected to draw large crowds.

The SK Telecom team, which has been preparing for the Yeosu Expo for two years, will show off its superb quality mobile communication by adopting a multi-carrier technology to enhance LTE capacity and speed on top of diverse PETA solutions such as LTE Femto Cell and Advanced-SCAN and the new 1.8GHz frequency band added to the existing 800MHz band, Baik Jung-gi in charge of the on-site coverage said.

SK Telecom’ s own pavilion “we_cloud,” under the theme “Harmony of Human touch with Leading-edge Technology,” is enjoying popularity among spectators. The pavilion is in the shape of a cloud symbolizing the communion of people in the Internet age. SK Telecom says the pavilion is designed to make sure spectators can touch, interact, participate, and empathize with the exhibits. There is an eye-catching “Beautiful Scape,” created by movie director Lee Joon-ik, which took a year to complete and features 1,000 random people singing “Beautiful Mountains,” a famous Korean rock song by Shin Joong-hyun.

“Time Alive,” where visitors can leave voice messages to anyone they wish, which will be sent after a year, and “Human Alive,” an art gallery with pieces made from digital technology, have both received rave reviews.