KT speeds up mobile content using Ericsson technology

• KT is to launch the world's first commercial mobile content acceleration service in Q1, 2014
• Solution expected to cut mobile web page download time by more than 50 percent
• The launch builds on Ericsson's Mobile Cloud Accelerator (MCA) solution and is part of the expanding partnership between KT and Ericsson focused on future network performance

Web page loading time is becoming business critical to operators and content providers. Mobile phone users are unlikely to return to a website if they experience problems in downloading a web page, and even more unlikely to recommend the website to others.

To gain a competitive edge in this area, KT, South Korea's leading telecoms provider, has entered into an agreement with Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) to launch a mobile content acceleration service in its live LTE network. This will be the world's first commercial deployment of its kind, and it builds on technology provided by Ericsson.

KT completed a technical feasibility study in January this year after testing and verifying the performance and interoperability of Ericsson's solution in a live network. This was followed by a commercial feasibility study in the third quarter, and the positive results led to KT's decision to launch a commercial service by Q1, 2014.

The trial results showed that using MCA reduces web page download time by more than 50 percent, dramatically improving the user experience. This is achieved by guaranteeing traffic transmission quality of certain categories of data, such as premium content and application traffic in the radio access area. The idea is to avoid the effects of radio congestion. The prioritization mechanism can be likened to having large vehicles running on a bus-only lane during periods of heavy traffic, while ordinary cars run on other lanes at slower speeds.

Heekyoung Song, Head of Enterprise IT Business Unit, KT commented: "We're pleased to announce that KT will be the first operator in the world to provide a commercial mobile content acceleration service, thanks to our strong partnership with Ericsson. It means that we can expand the connectivity of our premium CDN service from the fixed network, which we launched last year, to the mobile network. MCA deployment in our network will enable us to offer our subscribers a differentiated and higher quality of service. Downloading content in a much shorter time may well be one of the exceptionally good reasons why subscribers choose our network."

Jan Signell, Head of Region North East Asia, Ericsson says: "The explosion of connected mobile devices has opened a whole new world of possibilities, and LTE in South Korea is moving faster than in any other market. That's why our partnership with KT is important to us, because it allows us to be in the very frontline of developing future innovative mobile services."

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