Alcatel, SK Demo PMV Service

CANNES, France -- Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) and SK Telecom (KSE: 17670.KS and NYSE: SKM), the largest mobile operator in Korea, today jointly introduced the world's first photo-music-video (PMV) service at the 3GSM World Congress 2004 in Cannes, France.

With this service, end users can produce and send personalized video content to mobile phones or an email address. In a few clicks, end users can combine self-made digital photos with music and video they like, as well as text and desired effects. This new possibility is encouraging the usage of the service by the end users and mobile operators can expect to maximize profits by offering this differentiating mobile multimedia service.

The two leading companies in mobile applications tested and integrated SK Telecom's PMV service with Alcatel Mobile Multimedia Service (MMS) platform in Alcatel's 3G Reality Centre, an end-to-end 3G environment, in both France and Korea. The innovative solution is demonstrated at the Alcatel booth during the 3G World Congress in Cannes, France.

SK Telecom launched trial PMV service in Korea in December 2003 and plans to launch the service commercially in April, as one of its key multimedia messaging services. MMS services have been available from SK Telecom since September 2001 and include Photo Mail service, Video MMS service and SMIL-based MMS services. Starting March 2004, Alcatel will promote and market the joint MMS solution, which integrates Alcatel MMS platform with SK Telecom's PMV service, to mobile operators on a worldwide basis.

In Cannes, Alcatel is proving in a live and public environment the high performance and scalability of its MMS platform. This platform processes at least 150 MMS/second at a sustained rate with the complete MMS cycle on a Linux-powered configuration featuring three 2.4 GHz, dual-processor Intel® Xeon™ processor-based Rack-Mount Carrier Grade Servers. This represents more than half a million MMS processed per hour, a new industry record.

This performance enables mobile operators to offer advanced multimedia services more effectively. Alcatel's industry-leading MMS solutions have been applied commercially by numerous mobile operators, on all types of networks (2G, 2.5G, 3G) globally. In particular, Orange Group includes Alcatel's MMS solutions in its pilot live 3G experimental network in France. Within one year, more than twenty operators world-wide have successfully selected Alcatel MMS technologies. This places Alcatel as the leading supplier of new generation based MMS systems.

"The jointly-developed multimedia messaging solution will be a key differentiating service for mobile operators, especially when introducing 3G," declared Dr Lee, Chief Technology Officer of SK Telecom. "SK Telecom will benefit from Alcatel's huge worldwide customer base and strong momentum in multimedia messaging, as well as 3G."

"The launch of PMV service with Alcatel MMS is not only strong evidence to show Alcatel's industry-leading integration capabilities in offering multimedia messaging solutions, but also strong evidence to show the synergy between Alcatel and SK Telecom in the field of mobile solutions", stated Jean-Michel Cornille, President of Alcatel's mobile solutions activities. "We will leverage SK Telecom's strong leadership and credibility in mobile services to help our customers introduce more differentiated and profit-enabling mobile services."

Alcatel SA

SK Telecom