[Seoul=Whowired] March 16, 2012 -- SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM) announced today that it will hold meetings of the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance from March 19 to March 23 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel Seoul with the participation of 14 world-leading mobile network operators including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, China Mobile, France Telecom, Orange and Vodafone.

The meetings - including the Operating Committee meeting and Partner Forum - will allow the attendees to hold in-depth discussions for successful development and commercialization of next generation technologies such as LTE and LTE-A.

The NGMN Alliance, an open forum founded by global mobile operators, works to ensure that standards for next generation network infrastructure, service platforms, and devices will meet the requirements of operators and be reflected by international standardization organizations including 3GPP(3rd Generation Partnership Project) as well as telecommunications equipment vendors and manufacturers.

SK Telecom will deliver a presentation on its Hybrid Network technology - which attracted much attention from global mobile operators at the Mobile World Congress held last month – to promote international standardization of the technology. Moreover, the company plans to lead discussions on operators’ requirement for Cloud RAN(cloud-based next generation base station) as well as efficient ways to deliver high quality voice service over LTE networks.

Meanwhile, as part of its efforts to achieve mutual growth with SMEs, SK Telecom will provide a chance for companies like Contela, CS Corporation and Telcoware to introduce their technologies to the members of the NGMN Alliance.

Byun Jae-Woan, CTO and Head of Corporate R&D Group of SK Telecom said, “By hosting the NGMN meetings and presenting its latest independently developed technologies, SK Telecom expects to enhance Korea’s national status as a leader in the international standardization of next generation mobile networks. At the same time, SK Telecom will continue to pursue mutual growth with SMEs by creating a chance for them to take part in this meaningful occasion, thus paving a way for these small but competent companies to enter overseas markets.”

The NGMN Alliance was founded by major mobile operators in August 2006 as an open forum to lead development and commercialization of next generation mobile networks. It currently has 59 Partners: 18 mobile network operators, 34 vendors/manufacturers, and 7 universities or non-industrial research institutes.

SK Telecom has been serving as a Board Member (for two consecutive terms) since 2008 when it became the first company to hold NGMN meetings.

※ NGMN Operation Committee Meeting Attendees

AT&T, Bell Canada, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, KPN, KT, NTT Docomo, Orange/France Telecom, SK Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, TeliaSonera, Telstra, Vodafone

About SK Telecom

SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM, KSE: 017670), established in 1984, is Korea’s leading telecommunications provider with more than 26 million subscribers, which accounts for more than 50% of the total market. The company reached KRW 15.945 trillion in revenue in 2011. SK Telecom was the first to launch and commercialize CDMA, CDMA 2000 1x, CDMA EV-DO and HSDPA networks, and it currently provides cellular, wireless internet, mobile media, global roaming service and more. For more information, please visit www.sktelecom.com or email to press@sktelecom.com.

Media Contact:  

Irene Kim

SK Telecom Co. Ltd.

(822) 6100-3834

gahaekim@sk.com