SKT will collaborate with Japanese mobile carrier NTT Docomo in the future ICT field.

SK Telecom announced on the 21st that it signed a business agreement (MOU) with NTT Docomo for cooperation in ICT business.

Through this agreement, the two companies have established a strategic partnership in three areas: metaverse, communications infrastructure, and media. SK's ICT family, including ContentWave and SK Hynix, will also participate.

At the signing ceremony held at the Walkerhill Hotel in Seoul on the 18th, SKT's President Yoo Young-sang, Chief Business Officer (CDO) Ha Min-yong, SKTJ CEO Choi Woo-sung, Wave CEO Lee Tae-hyun, and Metaverse CO Manager Yang Maeng-seok attended, while NTT Docomo's key executives attended, including President Ii Motoyuki, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Naoki Tani, Smart Life Company Managing Director Hiromasa Takaoka, and R&D Strategy Department Manager Takatoshi Okagawa.

SKT and NTT Docomo will collaborate to enhance each company's metaverse services. Like SKT's 'E-Friend' service that has been in service since July of last year, NTT Docomo also launched and is operating a metaverse service in Japan in March of this year.

The two companies will explore jointly producing content for the metaverse, including K-pop and J-pop, and applying them to their respective services. Specifically, they will jointly secure intellectual property (IP) rights for content such as games and animations popular in both Korea and Japan, and jointly invest in technology companies such as metaverse-related content providers (CPs) and extended reality (XR) device manufacturers.

The two companies discussed sharing their services and technological know-how, and even linking their services and conducting joint marketing in the long term.

We also agreed to cooperate in next-generation communications networks, including 6G. We will ensure that the use cases 6G will provide in the future and the key requirements from customer and operator perspectives are reflected in global standards organizations and the industry.

In particular, the two companies will jointly secure technologies related to open radio access networks (Open RAN) and virtual radio access networks (Virtual RAN), which will be fully implemented in 6G. Furthermore, they will transform the mobile communications network architecture into a cloud environment and jointly develop transport network technologies.

OTT service 'Wave' will enter the Japanese media market based on this collaboration with NTT Docomo.

The two companies will pursue strategic investments to conquer the global media market and cooperation in content production and distribution. In relation to this, the two companies are discussing ways to create synergy between their OTT services, such as jointly producing a number of original contents, including dramas and entertainment shows, and providing them exclusively to Korea and Japan.

SKT President Yoo Young-sang emphasized, “This MOU is very significant in that it is a comprehensive cooperation in the ICT field between telecommunication companies,” and “Through cooperation with NTT Docomo in the future ICT field, we will create tangible results that will lead global ICT innovation.”

Motoyuki Ii, President of NTT Docomo, said, "We look forward to creating new services and businesses in the global market through the combined technological prowess and business expertise of both companies, and to inspiring many customers with cutting-edge services. We will continue to further develop our businesses together."