SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) today announced that it has been chosen as the winner of the TechXLR8 Awards 2017 in the category of ‘Best 5G Trial between an Operator and Vendor’ at this year’s TexhXLR8 awards held on June 14, 2017 in London.

As the anchor event of London Tech Week - the Europe’s largest festival of technology held across London since 2014 – TechXLR8 showcases eight leading technology events: 5G World, IoT World Europe, Cloud & DevOps World, Apps World Evolution, VR & AR World, AI & Machine Learning World, Connected Cars & Autonomous Vehicles Europe and Project Kairos.

Held as part of the TechXLR8, the TechXLR8 Awards offer a platform to celebrate outstanding contributions in converging areas of technology. The award categories have been designed to showcase both research & development and solution providers leading the way in 5G, virtual & augmented reality, IoT, Cloud, connected automotive and artificial intelligence.

The ‘Best 5G Trial between an Operator and Vendor,’ as the category name implies, recognizes partnerships between an operator/enterprise and vendor contributing towards 5G R&D trials. Together with Ericsson, SK Telecom was named a winner of this category. The two companies have jointly built a 5G trial infrastructure – i.e. 28GHz 5G New Radio Access Technology (RAT) with advanced 5G features such as 3D beamforming, dynamic TDD, and network slicing-enabled core network – to cover a 2.6-kilometer close circuit track inside the BMW driving center located in Korea to demonstrate the world’s first 5G connected car, T5, along with various 5G use cases in November 2016. Then in February 2017 at the same location, the two companies have reached a data transfer speed of 3.6Gbps on connected cars running at 170 kilometers per hour, the world’s highest speed for a 28GHz-based 5G trial network, through the application of advanced beamforming and beamtracking technologies.

“SK Telecom is honored to receive this award as it recognizes our efforts to drive innovations in the field of 5G, said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center of SK Telecom. “We will continue to focus on developing and applying advanced network technologies to provide our customers with the best quality service and accelerate our progress towards a commercial 5G network.”