SK Telecom, Korea’s largest mobile carrier, said that it held a meeting called “Bridge Alliance” with telecom companies in Asia Pacific in Jeju on Tuesday.

The top of the agenda was boosting partnerships in Long Term Evolution roaming across the region and between alliance members.

According to Wireless Intelligence, a telecom researcher, the number of LTE users worldwide is expected to grow 69 percent annually to 580 million in total by 2016.

SK Telecom and CSL in Hong Kong were the first companies to provide LTE roaming services in June this year in the Asia Pacific.

Singapore’s Singtel and Australia’s Optus began such services since early this year, while Malaysia’s Maxis is preparing to commercialize LTE roaming, the Korean telecom company said.

BA members plan to introduce a new service that allows users to use not only roaming calls but also text messaging at a discount.

By Park Hyong-ki (hkp@heraldcorp.com)