South Korea ’ s leading mobile communications company SK Telecom ( SKT ) signed an agreement with Swedish telecom equipment company Ericsson for development of LTE Advanced ( LTE - A ) services , the next - generation mobile communication standard of Long Term Evolution ( LTE ) . SKT ’ s senior vice president and head of technology strategy office , Choi Jin - sung , signed an agreement with Thomas Noren , head of product line , LTE at Ericsson , to cooperate for LTE ’ s next generation technology LTE - A in Barcelona , Spain , the venue of the Mobile World Congress ( MWC ) last Sunday ( local time ) , said SKT . Under the agreement , the two companies plan to co - develop and demonstrate the technology required for leading LTE - A services , which are scheduled to be commercially deployed in Korea starting in the second half ( H 2 ) this year , and strengthen cooperation in globally emerging small cell technologies . The two companies focus on small cells because the cells help efficiently distribute data traffic and boost the efficiency of investment . Small cells are on the rise in the global market . The number of small cells would increase 2 . 3 times from 6 . 50 million last year to 15 million late this year and 14 times to 91 million in 2016 , estimated UK research firm Informa Telecoms & Media . [ Written by Sun - ah Kim / edited by Soyoung Chung ] [ ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk . co . kr , All rights reserved ]