OREANDA-NEWS. CEOs of Korea's representative mobile operator SK telecom (CEO & President Ha Sung Min, www.sktelecom.com) and China Mobile (Chairman Xi Guohua, www.chinamobile.com) had an in-depth meeting to discuss the future of mobile communication business.

SK telecom introduced its advanced LTE/LTE-A network construction know-how and key technologies to the management of China Mobile, including Chairman Xi Guohua, who visited the Euljiro Headquarters of SK telecom. The two companies also discussed various collaboration measures such as providing LTE roaming services between the two countries.

China Mobile is planning to lead 4G mobile communication in the world's largest market, China, through the commercialization of LTE and SK telecom is already providing world's best LTE services. It is expected that this discussion between CEOs of two companies will lead innovation of technology and service in both countries and influence the development of global communication industry.

To begin with, 6.7 million Korean/Chinese travelers (according to the immigration report 2012) can use high quality voice/video call services, if interlocking of VoLTE between the two countries is completed in 2014. They also can use SNS and wireless data services such as tourist information. The two companies had already succeeded in interlocking world's first VoLTE between two countries on November 13, 2013 and had finished technical preparation for high quality voice/video call services.

During the meeting, SK telecom explained its various network operation technologies in detail, applied by SKT for the first time in the world, such as Carrier Aggregation (CA), Multi Carrier (MC), and LTE Femto, which are the basis of SKT's differentiated LTE services.

Besides LTE technologies, the two companies discussed various LTE-specialized services, such as T Premium and T Baseball, which are provided only in Korea. At the same time, SKT explained the results of and customers' respons to innovative special data plan, such as 'Data Share', 'Data Gift', and 'Late-night Data Discount'.

The two companies set up various joint working groups in 2011 and are collaborating in technology and service development related with inter-country VoLTE interlocking.

Meanwhile, before the meeting, Chairman Xi Guohua and other CEOs of China Mobile had visited Korea's only ICT exhibition center T.um and had a chance to experience cutting-edge ICT services. T.um consists of a Play Dream center that shows future life and a Play Real center that provides SKT's current advanced technologies and services. Including many guests of the state, 45,000 visitors from 173 countries have visited this center.

In regard with the visit of China Mobile's CEOs, CEO Ha Sung Min said, “Cooperation between representative mobile operators of Korea and China has its significance in that it will lead the development of the global ICT industry, let alone the Asia's ICT industry. We will continue progressive exchanges with China Mobile in various fields such as interlocking of VoLTE commercialized network and data roaming.”

Meanwhile, SKT opened the era of global LTE roaming by providing world's first LTE automatic roaming service with Hong Kong mobile operator CSL on June 4, 2012. Also it succeeded in providing world's first commercialized FDD-TDD LTE automatic roaming service with the Saudi Arabian company Mobily on October 24, 2013. Currently, SKT is providing LTE automatic roaming services in Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, and Saudi Arabia.

In addition, the company achieved worldwide fame in its advanced LTE technologies by winning various awards such as 'Outstanding LTE Contribution' at MWC Global Mobile Awards 2013 in February 2013, the Best Mobile Carrier in the Telecom Asia Awards in April 2013 for the two years in a row, and 'Most Significant LTE Development' at the LTE World Summit in June 2013.