SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) today announced that it won “Most Innovative Telecom Project” for its commercialization of tri-band LTE-A at the “Telecom Asia Awards 2015” held in Jakarta, Indonesia on May 20.

Now in its 18th year, “Telecom Asia Awards” is an annual event hosted by telecommunications and IT media, Telecom Asia, to honor telecom carriers that provide the best services in the region.

“Most Innovative Telecom Project” won by SK Telecom is a category that recognizes the most influential technology in the market. SK Telecom was acclaimed by judges for its efforts in providing best network experiences to customers with continuous LTE technology development and expansion of coverage enabled through tri-band LTE-A commercialization.

SK Telecom launched the tri-band LTE-A service, which supports speeds of up to 300Mbps by combining three carriers of different frequency bands (800MHz, 1.8GHz and 2,1GHZ) through carrier aggregation, in December 2014. In addition, the company has completed rolling out a total of 26,000 units of 2.1GHz base stations and upgraded repeaters installed throughout the nation to further increase the coverage and stability of its tri-band LTE-A service. Through such efforts, SK Telecom’s customers are enjoying tri-band LTE-A service in major areas of all 85 cities nationwide, including Seoul and six other metropolitan cities. SK Telecom also plans to add 5,000 units of 2.1GHz base stations across the nation by August this year to set itself further apart from other mobile carriers in terms of tri-band LTE-A service coverage and quality, while enhancing the level of customer satisfaction.

“SK Telecom is honored to receive the “Most Innovative Telecom Project” award with our industry-leading tri-band LTE-A service,” said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center at SK Telecom. “We will continue to develop innovate network technologies and services to provide our customers with the best mobile experience.”

About SK Telecom

SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM, KSE: 017670), established in 1984, is Korea’s largest telecommunications company with more than 28 million mobile subscribers, accounting for around 50% of the market. The company reached KRW 17.164 trillion in revenue in 2014. As the world’s first company to commercialize CDMA, CDMA 2000 1x, CDMA EV-DO and HSDPA networks, SK Telecom launched the nation’s first LTE service in July 2011. SK Telecom also became the world’s first mobile carrier to commercialize 150Mbps LTE-Advanced in June 2013 and 225Mbps LTE-Advanced in June 2014 through Carrier Aggregation(CA). In line with its efforts to swiftly move towards the next-generation mobile network system, or 5G, it successfully commercialized 300Mbps tri-band LTE-A CA. As of the end of March 2015, the company has over 17.4 million LTE and LTE-Advanced subscribers. Based on its strength in network operations business, SK Telecom is seeking new growth engines through three innovative platforms namely Lifestyle Enhancement Platform, Advanced Media Platform and IoT Service Platform. For more information, please visit www.sktelecom.com or email to press@sktelecom.com.