SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) today announced that it received a prestigious award for ’Most Significant Development of a Commercial LTE Network – Operator’ at LTE World Summit 2013 held in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

In its ninth year, LTE World Summit, organized by Informa Telecoms and Media, is the world’s leading 4G event participated by over 3,000 attendees, 125 exhibitors, and 250 speakers from more than 130 countries around the globe. LTE Awards, one of the main events of LTE World Summit and the most prestigious award in the LTE industry, recognize companies who are leading the global LTE market - including operators, equipment vendors, manufacturers, etc. – in a total of 12 categories. The awards are judged by an influential panel of senior and expert operator-led individuals.

The award recognized SK Telecom for its ceaseless efforts and achievements in providing LTE service. Since launching Korea’s first LTE service in July 2011, the company has been leading the LTE market through rapid deployment of nationwide LTE network, rich line-up of LTE smartphones and development of cutting-edge LTE technologies as well as various value added services such as mobile IPTV and network games. Its LTE subscriber base is growing rapidly, exceeding 10.6 million as of the end of May 2013. At present, LTE subscribers take up around 39 percent of the company’s total mobile subscriber base.

The company’s efforts towards LTE are being increasingly recognized by international organizations across the globe: SK Telecom won the ’GSMA Chairman’s Award’ and ’Outstanding LTE Contribution Award’ at this year’s Mobile World Congress held in February. It also won awards from Telecom Asia Awards in April and GTB Innovation Awards and Small Cell Industry Awards in June this year.

Byun Jae-woan, CTO of SK Telecom, yesterday gave a keynote speech titled ’First Mover Perspectives,’ to share his experience and insights gained from launching the Korea’s first LTE service and operating diverse LTE-based services. Byun introduced how SK Telecom has offered value added services such as T Freemium, ’Btv mobile’, and T Baseball to enhance customers’ LTE experience, and developed cutting-edge technologies such as Multi Carrier and VoLTE (HD Voice). In particular, he focused on technical issues of VoLTE including traffic management, scheduler optimization, and software-defined networking, and received great responses from operators who are preparing for VoLTE service.

Also, as the Chairman of Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN), he emphasized the needs for development of innovative LTE services and technologies through proactive collaboration among mobile operators and manufacturers.

Byun Jae-woan, CTO of SK Telecom said, "SK Telecom is very proud to receive the award for ’Most Significant Development of a Commercial LTE Network – Operator’ at LTE World Summit, as it recognizes our long-standing commitment to developing innovative network technologies and services. SK Telecom will continue to make efforts to realize faster, stronger and more reliable next-generation networks to deliver greater value and convenience to our customers."