South Korean operator SK Telecom reached the one million subscriber milestone for its pioneering LTE-Advanced service.

The company quietly hit the figure earlier this month (11 October), less than four months after becoming the world’s first operator to commercially activate LTE-Advanced services.

A representative for SK Telecom told Mobile World Live the operator now boasts a total of 12.4 million subscribers using the new LTE-Advanced and older LTE networks, representing more than 46 per cent of its entire mobile subscriber base.

Launched at the end of June, the LTE-Advanced network offers theoretical peak download speeds of up to 150Mbit/s, with users apparently able to download an 800MB movie in 43 seconds. By the end of July the network was available in central areas of 84 cities nationwide.

According to GSMA Intelligence, there are only four LTE-Advanced networks live globally. SK’s South Korean rivals KT and LG Uplus have already activated services, as well as Russian network MegaFon.