SK Telecom Launches Premium Color Ring Back Tone Service Based on Coding Technologies' aacPlus

Business Wire, March 27, 2007

Mobile users can now greet incoming callers with high fidelity music and audio instead of the common tones in use today

SEOUL, Korea & ORLANDO, Fla. -- Coding Technologies, the leading provider of audio compression for mobile, digital broadcasting and the Internet, and SK Telecom, the leading mobile service provider in Korea, have successfully incorporated Coding Technologies' aacPlus audio codec into SK Telecom's Premium Color Ring Back Tone service (PCRBT) launched on March 13. The new aacPlus audio codec greatly improves the audio quality compared to the former service. The launch of SK Telecom's PCRBT service constitutes a commercial proof of concept and is expected to impact the adoption of similar services in other countries. The first phone models supporting the new service are already available from vendors such as Motorola and Pantech.

Color Ring Back Tones allow mobile phone users to personalize their mobile phone service by selecting songs that callers hear when calling the user's phone. Color Ring Back Tones are a much sought-after life-style accessory in the huge Asian markets with more than 12 million active users in South Korea.

"The use of Coding Technologies' aacPlus in our new PCRBT service is integral to the quality of the offering and has enabled us to provide a dramatically enhanced and improved service," said JongTae Ihm, Vice President of Mobile Device & Access Network R&D Center, SK Telecom. "We believe that aacPlus is an excellent audio format capable of giving us this market advantage opportunity, and will expand it to 3G WCDMA market."

The introduction of Coding Technologies' aacPlus in SK Telecom's PCRBT service follows the signing of a development agreement between the two companies in 2006.

In this latest strengthening of the relationship between the two companies, Coding Technologies' innovative high quality audio and high compression efficiency technology helps to grow the operator's business. As a compelling service offering with significantly improved audio quality for the user, the new Premium Color Ring Back Tones are expected to provide new revenue generating opportunities for the operator.

"By applying our technology to its new Premium Color Ring Back Tone service, SK Telecom has once again shown its ability to innovate in order to define new standards in a fast-paced industry," said Martin Dietz, CEO & President, Coding Technologies. "We expect the results of our collaboration to generate new levels of user satisfaction and experiences. We look forward to continuing our creative partnership and driving further developments that will help to shape the telecom industry and SK Telecom's future success."

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Coding Technologies

Coding Technologies provides the best audio compression for mobile, broadcasting, and Internet. SBR[TM] (Spectral Band Replication) from Coding Technologies is a backward and forward compatible method to enhance the efficiency of any audio codec; putting the "PRO" in mp3PRO and the "Plus" in aacPlus. Parametric Stereo from Coding Technologies and Philips again significantly increases the efficiency of audio codecs for stereo signals at low bit rates. Products from Coding Technologies are fundamental enablers of open standards such as 3GPP, 3GPP2, MPEG, DVB, Digital Radio Mondiale, HD Radio, and the DVD Forum.

Coding Technologies is a privately held company with offices in Sweden, Germany, and Silicon Valley. Founded in 1997 in Stockholm, the company later merged with a spin-off of the renowned Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, the inventor of MP3. Coding Technologies' customers include America Online, EMP, iBiquity Digital, KDDI, mmO2, Nokia, Orange, RealNetworks, SK Telecom, Sprint, T-Mobile, Thomson, Texas Instruments, Vodafone, and XM Satellite Radio.

For more information, visit www.codingtechnologies.com.

SK Telecom

SK Telecom is Korea's leading provider of information and telecommunications services spanning Mobile Services, M-Commerce, overseas operations with 18 million subscribers. SK Telecom commercialized the world's first CDMA cellular service in 1996 and the first 3rd generation cdma2000 1X service in 2002. Moreover, SK Telecom unveiled the first commercial CDMA 2000 1x EV-DO service in January 2002 and holds the license for UMTS network in Korea.

Recognizing the enormous potential of the wireless Internet as a new growth engine, SK Telecom continues to pursue the development and promotion of wireless Internet services. Based on the technological developments, SK Telecom launched "June", the latest and the most technologically advanced multimedia service in 2002. This innovative service allows subscribers to enjoy streaming video content such as VOD, MOD, videophones, multimedia messaging and TV broadcasting using 3rd generation technologies. For details, please visit http://www.sktelecom.com