SK Telecom, a South Korean wireless telecommunications operator, has announced plans to build additional 1.8GHz base stations to increase nationwide coverage for its LTE and LTE-Advanced networks, by the end of this year, LteWorld reported on Monday.

The operator already has a nationwide LTE network using 10 MHz in the 800-MHz frequency band, as of April, 2012. It says that the nationwide rollout of this 20-MHz LTE will give the company an edge in deployment nationwide, with a "20-MHz (1.8-GHz) + 10-MHz (800-MHz)" LTE-Advanced network that offers up to 225 Mbps of speed.

It also said that it has approval for a 10-MHz bandwidth in the 2.1-GHz band for LTE. It got 30-MHz bandwidth in the 2.1-GHz band from a frequency auction, in 2010.

The new 10-MHz LTE bandwidth in the 2.1-GHz band, gives SK Telecom an LTE bandwidth in three different frequency bands – 10-MHz in the 800-MHz band, 20-MHz in 1.8-GHz band, and 10-MHz in 2.1-GHz band – bringing it one step closer to LTE-Advanced tri-band carrier aggregation technology supporting up to 300 Mbps.

SK Telecom will begin work on base stations for LTE in the 2.1-GHz band the second quarter of 2014 and make the network commercially available as soon as supporting handsets are on the market.