KT said Thursday it received the top prize for a Long Term Evolution network operator at an awards ceremony held by Informa Telecoms and Media.

At the LTE Awards 2012 in Barcelona the country’s biggest fixed-line service provider received the award for “Most Significant Development for Commercial LTE Network by an Operator” for its network technology LTE WARP, its officials said.

The event took place on the sidelines of the LTE World Summit 2012.

“We’re delighted that the competitiveness of KT’s technology has been recognized through the award,” Kim Sung-man, senior executive vice president of the network group at the company, said at the event. “We plan to transform the local LTE market with our technology as well as moving forward to export it in overseas markets.”

The company was recognized for applying virtualization to its LTE commercial networks, a first internationally, creating the next generation of LTE technology, according to KT officials.

Judge Jean-Pierre Bienaime, who is also affiliated with Orange, said the firm’s LTE WARP has not only successfully adopted cloud computing technology but was noticed for establishing a nationwide LTE network in the shortest time and for effectively taking control of data traffic.

Global mobile carriers such as Orange, AT&T and Telecom Italia are judged in 10 different sectors, including LTE network operations, handsets and chipsets, as well as core and wireless devices.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)