South Korea's SK Telecom has signed on 1 million subscribers to its joyn.T integrated communication service, which launched at the end of last year.
The operator said its Rich Communications Services (RCS) offering, which launched on Dec. 26, 2012, is the first in the world to achieve the 1 million subscriber milestone.
The operator has been aggressively marketing the new service. On Jan. 26, SK Telecom began offering unlimited, free-for-life joyn.T SMS/IMS services to its smartphone subscribers on flat-rate plans. In addition, data fees incurred from sending/receiving messages are not deducted from subscribers' data allowances.
"As joyn.T integrates SMS and IMS features for the first time in the world, joyn.T users can freely send messages to phones without joyn.T applications including feature phones," noted the carrier. An instant message sent to a non-joyn.T phone appears in the recipient's SMS inbox.
"SK Telecom aims to integrate all means of mobile communication into joyn.T to make it the most attractive choice for customers seeking an accurate and enriched communication service," said Wi Eui-Seok, the carrier's head of product planning.
To that end, the operator will link joyn.T to HD Voice, its VoLTE service. "As SK Telecom plans to embed HD Voice in all its LTE-capable smartphones to be released from March, more customers will be able to gain an enriched communication experience by enjoying high-speed video/file-sharing during a LTE voice call," said the carrier.
The operator will also open APIs for joyn.T to developer that want to launch services such as games, social networking services and mobile commerce.
The GSMA began promoting the joyn brand for RCS at last year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. RCS is seen as a solution that operators can deploy to circumvent the threat from third-party over-the-top (OTT) services.
SK Telecom received a congratulatory message from the GSMA, which said joyn.T is expected to trigger numerous mobile carriers and manufacturers around the world to accelerate the commercialization of Joyn services.
For more:
- see this SK Telecom release
- see this telecoms.com article
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