KT Corp., South Korea’s No. 2 mobile operator, said Monday that it has started providing faster LTE services with wider bandwidth and LTE-Advanced services with increased coverage.

The Light Term Evolution service with wider bandwidth was launched in the Seoul metropolitan area in September. KT said the service will be expanded nationwide by January.

In August, KT won the rights to use the 1.8 GHz spectrum through rounds of auctions, which helped the telecom operator catch up with its local rivals in expanding its LTE services, as it is already offering its LTE service on the same spectrum.

Mobile carriers have been vying to offer the service as more customers are expected to join down the road.

As of August this year, the number of smartphone users reached 36.32 million, accounting for 67.1 percent of total mobile-phone subscriptions.