SK Telecom Wins 2019 Asia Mobile Award for Innovative Roaming Technology ‘baro’
SK Telecom won the ‘Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough in Asia’ award at the 2019 Asia Mobile Awards (AMO Awards), held yesterday as part of MWC19 Shanghai. SK Telecom Roaming Technology
The awards honor achievement, excellence and innovation in mobile communications across the Asia Pacific region.
‘Best Mobile Breakthrough in Asia,’ recognizes mobile technology advances and industry leadership achieved in Asia.
With the aim to enable its customers to make and receive high-quality, free-of-charge international roaming voice calls while travelling to 170 countries across the world, SK Telecom launched ‘baro’ on December 17, 2018.
By subscribing to the company’s data roaming plans (‘baro’ Plan), users can not only enjoy free unlimited international roaming voice calls but also make local calls for free within the country where they are travelling. Data used for these voice calls are not deducted from user’s data roaming plan allotment so as to maximize customer benefits.
As opposed to the existing roaming services that provide poor quality service at high costs, ‘baro’ offers the best call quality voice roaming service for free through the development and application of an innovative technology that interconnects the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) infrastructure and mVoIP system.
As of June 2019, ‘baro’ has attracted 2.2 million users and 38 million cumulative calls (total of 800,000 hours of voice calls).
“SK Telecom is delighted to receive this award as it recognizes our strenuous efforts to drive innovations in roaming services,” said Han Myung-jin, Vice President and Head of MNO Business Supporting Group of SK Telecom. “We will continue to develop breakthrough technologies and services to deliver greater value and convenience to our customers.”
The winners of the 2019 Asia Mobile Awards in the other categories are: SK Telecom Roaming Technology
Best IoT Innovation for Mobile Networks in Asia
Telstra Corporation Limited, Ericsson for world’s first implementation of a nation-wide long-range NB-IoT network reaching up to 100km.
Asia 5G Innovation Award
KT for Worldwide Pioneer in 5G.
Best Smartphone in 2019
Huawei for Huawei P30 and P30 Pro.
Best Mobile service for Connected Living in Asia
ZTE for Air to Ground Broadband Service for Airline Connected Living.
Best Mobile Innovation for Smart Cities in Asia
China Mobile, Huawei, Tendency, Zhengzhou Public Security Bureau for Large-scale NB-IoT Electric Bike Protection and Management.
Outstanding Mobile Contribution to the UN SDGs in Asia
China Mobile, Huawei & China’s 301 Hospital for The World’s First Successful 5G Remote Surgery on a Living Human Patient Enabled by 5G DN.
Outstanding Contribution to the Asia Mobile Industry
Takashi Tanaka, Chairman of KDDI.
Women4Technology – Asian Industry Leadership Award
Xinmei Cai, Google Japan.
