South Korean Singtel showcases its metaverse potential with SKT’s ifland

Only weeks after signing a metaverse development partnership deal with South Korean peer SK Telecom (SKT), Singtel has hosted a demonstration for a select group of customers to show how its 5G services can enable extended reality experiences.  

At the “Destination: ifland” event held late last week at its headquarters, Singtel Comcentre, the Singaporean telco hosted around 130 Singtel customers (the winners of a special competition) to see how a combination of 5G and SKT’s metaverse app, ifland, can open the doors to “richer and more immersive metaverse experiences” for consumers.

“The evolution of the internet is shifting towards a creator economy and immersive virtual worlds”, which requires an ultra-low latency network with high-speed connectivity and higher bandwidth, explained Anna Yip, CEO of the consumer Singapore business at Singtel.

As well as its focus on south-east Asia with Singtel, SKT – arguably the most advanced telco with regards to metaverse-related developments, having launched ifland in its domestic market in 2021 – is building momentum around its global metaverse platform expansion plan through a number of collaborations, including one with Deutsche Telekom in Europe and another with e& in the Middle East.

In addition to consumer applications, Singtel regards the metaverse (when combined with 5G) as a digital transformation enabler across industry verticals, such as manufacturing, where “emerging technologies and innovations such as automated robots can be deployed in the metaverse to test operations or train staff before such machinery is deployed in the real world”, noted the operator.

While much of the early metaverse development and demonstration focus is on possibilities in the consumer sector, it is the enterprise market that holds the greatest business opportunity, according to the team at ABI Research.

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