COSTA MESA, Calif., April 13, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- The CDMA Development Group (CDG) (www.cdg.org) today congratulates SK Telecom on its recent launch of the world's first high-speed wireless data roaming service between China, Japan and Korea. SK Telecom's CDMA2000(r) subscribers can enjoy their many high-speed data services along with traditional voice call automatic roaming, short message service (SMS), multimedia applications and calling number identification service while traveling in China and Japan.
"International roaming is an important part of the customer experience today and the CDMA industry is expanding coverage and developing solutions to provide seamless access to services across international boarders," said Perry LaForge, executive director, CDG. "Since CDMA2000 was built with data in mind and is widely deployed around the world, CDMA2000 operators are well positioned to lead the industry in providing global data roaming services. SK Telecom has just demonstrated this."
SK Telecom launched its Wireless Data Automatic Roaming Services in Beijing and Shanghai in November 2003, and recently expanded the service to twelve provinces in China and throughout Japan. With the service, SKT's customers have access to NATE, a popular wireless Internet service, and can send pictures, receive news and perform financial transactions. While in China, they are also able to enjoy June services, which offer access to multimedia content such as MMS, TV broadcasts, streaming video, video-on-demand and music-on-demand.
At the end of March, SK Telecom reported that it had more than 18 million subscribers, including 17 million wireless Internet users.
CDMA2000 leads in 3G deployments with more than 85 million users and 81 operators in 40 countries on six continents. CDMA2000 has 97 percent market share for 3G services. Nearly 40 percent of the global CDMA subscriber base uses CDMA2000 networks.
More information on CDMA2000 and CDMA roaming is available on the CDG Web site at www.cdg.org.
About the CDG
The CDMA Development Group is a trade association formed to foster the worldwide development, implementation and use of CDMA technologies. The more than 100 member companies of the CDG include many of the world's largest wireless carriers and equipment manufacturers. The primary activities of the CDG include development of CDMA features and services, public relations, education and seminars, regulatory affairs and international support. Currently, there are more than 500 individuals working within various CDG subcommittees on CDMA-related matters. The subscriber numbers in this release are estimates provided by third parties on a quarterly basis and have not been independently verified by CDG. For more information about the CDG, contact the CDG News Bureau at +1-714-540-1030 or visit the CDG Web site at www.cdg.org.
Note to editors: cdmaOne is a trademark of the CDG. CDMA2000 is a registered trademark of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA-USA).