LG Uplus Corp., the country’s smallest mobile carrier, introduced its next-generation mobile network on Thursday, offering speeds twice as fast as the existing long-term evolution network.

This move by LG Uplus came as its bigger local rival SK Telecom Co. unveiled here last month the world’s first LTE-Advanced network service.

With the use of the LTE-Advanced network, an 800 megabyte file takes some 40 seconds to download, compared with 80 seconds with the existing LTE service, it said.

The LTE-Advanced service is currently available in Seoul and other some major cities, but will be available across the nation during the third quarter of the year, it said.

LG Uplus said its LTE-Advanced service is based on carrier aggregation technology, which bundles two frequency bands to increase bandwidth. The network automatically chooses one of several frequency bands available based on data traffic at the user’s location.

The mobile carrier said a flurry of LTE-Advanced-compatible smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices will be rolled out down the road.

Samsung Electronics Co., the largest smartphone maker, last month released the Galaxy S4 LTE-A, the world’s first phone optimized to work on the country’s LTE-Advanced network. (Yonhap News)