BARCELONA -- Mobile World Congress 2012 -- KT Corp. plans to announce the first Long Term Evolution (LTE) small cell deployment on Monday at Mobile World Congress, Light Reading Mobile has learned.

The service provider will build out LTE-optimized small cells to complement its 4G rollout, according to a source familiar with the company's plans. Mindspeed Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: MSPD), which specializes in LTE chipsets for small cells and which recently acquired femtocell chip vendor picoChip, will be powering the small cells for the deployment. (See Mindspeed Snaps Up Picochip for $51.8M.)

While most operators are looking at multi-mode 3G/4G small cells, KT is building out a pure LTE architecture and working on shutting down its 2G CDMA network to refarm the spectrum for LTE. After some delays, the carrier first launched its 4G network at the beginning of the year in five districts in the highly competitive South Korean market. (See KT Picks NSN for LTE, KT Unveils LTE Timetable and Asia/Pac Will Be LTE World Leader .)

It's not the only small-cell development for Mindspeed at MWC. The chipset vendor also supplies the 3G component of Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU)'s lightRadio small cells for Telefónica SA (NYSE: TEF) here in Barcelona. (See AlcaLu lightRadios Go Live at MWC .)

— Sarah Reedy, Senior Reporter, Light Reading Mobile