SK Telecom has come up with new overseas roaming products that lower charges by up to 56 percent over existing products. The telecom service provider has also introduced a one-month long-term roaming product.
Fixed charges for data roaming will decline from current 4.55 won to 2 won per packet (512 bytes). On top of the conventional roaming charging cap of 100,000 won per month, a new product with a roaming charging cap of 20,000 won per day will be introduced to ease customers' worry over overcharges. To this end, if more than 20,000 won is charged per day, customers will be notified with a free mail message calling for customers to subscribe with a fixed roaming pricing system or applying for a data shutting system.
Customers subscribing with the “T Roaming Long Pass 7" will be charged with 42,900 won for using 1GB of data for one week. Those with "T Roaming Long Pass 30" will be charged with 64,900 won for using 1.5 GB of data for 30 days. Clients are required to subscribe with the two products until next Jan. 6.
"There are cases where people have been overcharged without their knowledge while traveling overseas," said Joo Ji-won, head of SK Telecom Product Marketing Division.
Customers will now be free of the burden of having to worry about being overcharged because of the 20,000 won per day cap, and the long-term roaming pricing system, he added.
SK Telecom Commercializes Nationwide LoRa Network for IoT
SK Telecom held a press conference on July 14 to announce the completion of the nationwide deployment of Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) based on LoRa technology; the launch of price plans for LoRa-based IoT services; and its plans to vitalize the IoT ecosystem.
The company finished building LoRaWAN across the country by end of June, six months earlier than its initial schedule, covering 99 percent of the population. By securing both nationwide LTE-M and LoRaWAN, which are two main pillars of the IoT network, SK Telecom said that it is now fully ready to create valuable business opportunities in the IoT era. The company had completed nationwide LTE-M rollout in March 2016. To promote the growth of the IoT market, SK Telecom plans to offer attractive price plans and develop innovative IoT services, while offering strong support for SMEs. To this end, the company will invest a total of 100 billion won by the end of 2017. It expects these efforts to lead to rapid expansion of the IoT industry by connecting over 4 million things to its IoT-dedicated networks by the end of 2017.
Price Plan for LoRaWAN
SK Telecom unveiled new price plans for LoRaWAN-based IoT services. The “Band IoT” plans come in six different tiers i.e. from Band IoT 35 (approx. 30 cents) priced at 350 won to Band IoT 200 priced at 2,000 won (about $1.75) - depending on data use to allow SK Telecom’s customers both enterprises and individuals - to choose one that suits the needs of their services.
The Band Lora plans are highly affordable - costing merely one-tenth of SK Telecom’s LTE-based IoT services - and thus are expected to support active development and provision of diverse IoT services by easing the cost burden of startups and SMEs. The company is also offering diverse discount benefits for enterprise customers depending on their contract period and the number of lines they use.
For instance, a gas meter, which transmits relatively a small amount of data can be used by signing up for Band IoT 35, while a service that requires real-time communication like lighting control service can be used by signing up for Band IoT 200.
LoRa-based Service Roadmap
Considering the characteristics of the LPWA network, SK Telecom plans to develop services in the areas of metering, tracking and monitoring.
In the area of metering, the company is currently focusing on AMI, which enables the utility companies to not only accurately measure/monitor usage, but also control metering devices. SK Telecom has been conducting a pilot project on AMI with SK E&S since November 2015, and plans to expand the service coverage to more regions of the country in July 2016. Going forward, the company will launch AMI services for other utilities including water and electricity.
AMI is a kind of digital architecture for automated, two-way communication between a smart utility meter with an IP address and a utility company. AMI is expected to enhance user convenience and safety through its sophisticated remote metering & control features as well as automatic safety capabilities.
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