SKT Turns to Networking Services
By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
SK Telecom, the nation's top mobile carrier, is seeing surging momentum for its new revenue sources dubbed industry productivity enhancement (IPE).
The IPE strategy is the carrier's top corporate focus at a time when the nation's telecom majors are still struggling to find the "right new revenue sources" as the local market is already fully saturated.
By providing networking and other telecom-based support services to the industrial and public sectors for growth, SK Telecom hopes to generate 20 trillion won ($17 billion) in revenue from such services in 2020, according to its CEO Jung Man-won.
SK Telecom officials say it's too premature to talk about benefits from the strategy. But the activities are under way.
The carrier was chosen as the preferred bidder for the "Fixed Mobile Convergence Project" by steel giant POSCO.
The project requires changing all the fixed telephones in all of POSCO's offices to wireless ones and aims to build an integrated FMC system via WCDMA networks in the steel company's local facilities.
"SK Telecom plans to offer combined wireless solutions such as Wi-Fi, Zigbee, M2M and LBS. By using SK Broadband's fixed infrastructures, SKT will make a control tower that is fitted with ICT infrastructure," a SK Telecom spokeswoman said, Wednesday, adding the works will make POSCO maximize its productivity.
This is the second deal in SK Telecom's IPE project. Late last year, it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a local English language education company on developing a learning system that utilizes information communication technology.
The two companies are in detailed talks to commercialize "Smart Learning Service," a system that uses wireless communications networks to allow students to study anywhere at any time and to keep parents up to date with students' progress, in the third quarter of this year, the spokeswoman said.
CEO Jung recently said it will strike another IPE deal with a global company for the eventual global advance of the system.
"We will steadily break away from excessive reliance on individual mobile users and work with companies in the retail, financial, education, construction and healthcare industries."