Wireless Data Automatic Roaming Service in Japan

5th April , 2004

Above : An SK Telecom staff member is shown connecting to the NATE Service.

ASIA : SK Telecom announced that starting on April 1st, the company will launch a Wireless Data Automatic Roaming Service in Japan. At the dame time, the service area in China was expanded into twelve provinces. These now include Jirin, Kwangdong, Sandong, Hubey, herungjiang, Jangsu, Pujen, Hainan, Hunan, Winnan, and Tenjin. The wireless data service-enabled area has now been expanded into three countries (Korea, China and Japan) in Northeast Asia.

SK Telecom first launched a commercial Wireless Data Automatic Roaming Service in the two cities of Beijing and Shanghai, in November 2003. The service area is being expanded to twelve provinces starting on April 1st, 2004. This means the company can offer the service to the areas where 97% of SK Telecom customers visit.

In addition to the expansion in China, SK Telecom customers are now allowed to use a variety of content offered by the wireless Internet service 'NATE', in every area of Japan, while they are visiting Japan. They can enjoy such content as My Bell, Picture Mate, news, weather forecasting, stock trading and financial transactions, while using the original cellular phones they used in Korea.

In China, SK Telecom customers are able to enjoy "June" Service that offers high-capacity multimedia content like TV, streaming video, and music in video-on-demand (VOD) and music-on-demand (MOD) forms, as well as a 'Multimedia Messaging Service' that allows users to send and receive photos and streaming video. They can also carry out a variety of financial transactions through "M-Bank Service" (The financial transactions are allowed only with Woori Bank, as of the end of March).

Hak Hee Lee, head of SK Telecom's Global Roaming Team commented, "Because the Wireless Data Automatic Roaming Service area has been expanded into three countries (Korea, China and Japan) in Northeast Asia, SK Telecom customers can enjoy a wide range of the same quality wireless data services as they can in Korea. In the future, SK Telecom plans to expand the service area to thirteen countries in the neighboring Pacific regions." he added.

The Wireless Data Automatic Roaming Service rate is fixed at an economical level due to the fact that this service uses the international public Internet, while the voice automatic roaming service uses the international telephone network. The service rate in China is fixed at 1.1 times the rate in Korea, and 2.5 times the Korean rate in Japan.

In order to use the service in Japan, customers have to use Samsung SCH-X600D handsets that support the Japanese mobile phone frequency format, which is different from that of Korea. In China, customers are allowed to use the service with a simple setting of the menu on the NATE Service-enabled handsets.

If SK Telecom customers who do not use Samsung SCH-X600D handsets want to use the Wireless Data Automatic Roaming Service in Japan, they can visit the Roaming Center located next to Departure Gate 2, on the 3rd floor of Incheon International Airport, and rent a Samsung SCH-X600D handset, free of charge.

TODAY'S PRESS RELEASES
All Material Subject to Copyright. All logos, graphics and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Home ProZone Subscribe To Newsletter 3G Forum