SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) today announced that it has received three prestigious global awards for its pioneering efforts in the field of 5G. The company has won the “Biggest Contribution of 5G R&D” and “Most Notable Partnership between an Operator and Solutions Provider” held in Singapore on September 27, 2016. Also, on the same day, SK Telecom has been named the winner of the “Best 5G Initiative” award at RAN World Awards 2016 held in Dusseldorf, Germany.

■ 5G Asia Awards 2016

Formerly known as LTE Asia, 5G Asia is Asia’s leading 5G and LTE event, organized by Informa Telecoms and Media. The 5G Asia Awards held at the event recognizes leading mobile operators, equipment vendors, and manufacturers in a total of 10 categories. The awards are judged by senior research analysts from across the region.

This year, SK Telecom’s ‘cmWave 5G Radio System and SDN-enabled Evolved Packet Core’ has won the “Biggest Contribution of 5G R&D” category, which recognizes efforts to develop a vision and technology for 5G and future network deployment. Together with Nokia, SK Telecom has demonstrated 20.5Gbps transmission speed over the air, for the first time in the world, in February 2016, and also successfully developed and demonstrated an SDN-enabled distributed core network to stably support 5G transmission speeds in January 2016.

Moreover, SK Telecom, together with Ericsson, has also won the category of “Most Notable Partnership between an Operator and Solutions Provider” for their aggressive efforts to develop 5G technologies including network slicing to build a 5G end-to-end pilot. With the 5G system, the two companies expect to achieve successful adoption of new 5G-based services that can bring greater benefits to consumers, businesses and the industry.

Meanwhile, during the 5G Asia event, Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center of SK Telecom, delivered a keynote speech entitled “SK Telecom’s Journey Towards 5G Trials and Beyond” where he shared the company’s vision, achievements and future plans for 5G.

■ RAN World Award 2016

SK Telecom has also received the “Best 5G Initiative” award at RAN World Award (also known as RANNYs) held in Dusseldorf, Germany.

As a part of RAN World, the 2016 RANNYs rewards operators for innovation in radio access trials and deployments in total of four categories. RAN World, now in its third year, discusses and addresses the real-world radio access challenges of operators. It is organized by The Mobile Network, an influential mobile tech media, in partnership with global organizations including 3GPP, NGMN and ETSI. 

The “Best 5G initiative” award recognizes the operator who has most successfully trialed an innovative new hardware or software for the purposes of better understanding 5G development.

Together with Nokia, SK Telecom has successfully demonstrated 19.1 Gbps transmission in October 2015, and 20.5Gbps transmission speed in February 2016 respectivelywhich were the world’s best performances at that time. The companies also demonstrated a 5G hybrid core network with the separated user and control planes, the essential technology for supporting ultra-low latency services in Janunary.

“It is a great honor to receive these prestigious awards as it recognizes our efforts to lead the way in 5G,” said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center at SK Telecom. “SK Telecom is committed to introducing even more advanced network technologies that can enhance our customers’ mobile experience.”