SK Telecom will share expertise in the area of LoRa and provide its IoT platform to Telkom Indonesia.

Iain Morris, International Editor

May 12, 2016

2 Min Read
SK Telecom, Telkom Indonesia Unite on IoT

SK Telecom has teamed up with Telkom Indonesia on the development of IoT and media services, revealing they are in discussions to set up a joint Internet of Things venture within the next couple of years.

The deal draws particular attention to the LoRa technology that SK Telecom (Nasdaq: SKM) is deploying, indicating the South Korean operator will share its experiences in this area so that IoT services can be tailored to the requirements of the Indonesian market.

LoRa is one of several low-power, wide-area (LPWA) network technologies that has recently been attracting interest from companies launching IoT services. Running over unlicensed spectrum, it looks a better bet than existing cellular technologies for services that require little bandwidth and low battery life and that need to cover broad geographical areas.

In March, SK Telecom unveiled plans to build a LoRa network covering the whole of South Korea at a cost of about 100 billion Korean won ($85.5 million).

SK Telecom's LoRa plans raise questions about its commitment to Sigfox , a company developing a rival LPWA technology. The operator was one of several companies to participate in a $115 million funding round for Sigfox in February 2015.

Want to know more about the Internet of Things? Check out our dedicated IoT content channel here on Light Reading.

A spokesperson for the LoRa Alliance , the association that promotes LoRa, said the technology was quickly building momentum.

"This is one of the 56 ongoing proof of concepts converting," he told Light Reading. "SK [Telecom] is very active and pushing LoRaWAN widely, not just in Korea. This is just the beginning of a very busy and exciting summer."

SK Telecom said it would also make its ThingPlug IoT platform available to Telkom and collaborate with the Indonesian telco on the development of cloud-based TV services.

— Iain Morris, Circle me on Google+ Follow me on TwitterVisit my LinkedIn profile, News Editor, Light Reading

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About the Author(s)

Iain Morris

International Editor, Light Reading

Iain Morris joined Light Reading as News Editor at the start of 2015 -- and we mean, right at the start. His friends and family were still singing Auld Lang Syne as Iain started sourcing New Year's Eve UK mobile network congestion statistics. Prior to boosting Light Reading's UK-based editorial team numbers (he is based in London, south of the river), Iain was a successful freelance writer and editor who had been covering the telecoms sector for the past 15 years. His work has appeared in publications including The Economist (classy!) and The Observer, besides a variety of trade and business journals. He was previously the lead telecoms analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, and before that worked as a features editor at Telecommunications magazine. Iain started out in telecoms as an editor at consulting and market-research company Analysys (now Analysys Mason).

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