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Korea:
Foreign tech firms eyeing 4G
opportunity
SEOUL - Foreign
technology companies are lining up to showcase their
technical standards for the fourth-generation (4G)
high-speed, mobile Internet network in highly wired
South Korea.
But the South Korean government's
plan to introduce its homegrown 4G standard raises
questions about whether these companies are winning
support from their local partners.
Presently,
Flarion, ArrayComm, IP Wireless, Navini and Nortel
Networks are testing, or have tested, their 4G
technologies with potential South Korean operators,
including KT Corp, Hanaro Telecom Inc and SK Telecom Co.
On Wednesday, SK Telecom, South Korea's biggest
cell phone operator, will test high-speed 4G mobile
Internet services with Flarion, a spin off of the Lucent
Technologies Inc research arm Bell Labs.
"We
will implement Flarion's 4G technology on a trial basis
in an area around our research and development center in
Bundang," said SK Telecom spokesman Kwon Chul-keun.
Bundang is a city just south of Seoul.
The
proprietary Flarion system, which has yet to be used on
a commercial basis, would enable laptop and handheld
computer users to wirelessly connect to the Internet,
even while in a moving vehicle.
However, the
South Korean company remains cautious about whether
there is enough concrete industry support to get the
Flarion technology off the ground.
SK Telecom,
which is the wireless carrier for more than half of
South Korea's 33 million cell phone users, is also
gearing up to introduce another high-speed mobile phone
service centered on Qualcomm's CDMA2000 1X EV-DO
(evolution data optimized) technology.
The
details of trials are not yet final and it is unclear
how the phone company would combine both systems
commercially, analysts said.
More troublesome
are regulatory concerns. Currently, the Ministry of
Information and Communication, South Korea's top telecom
regulator, is pushing to mandate the use of homegrown 4G
network technology.
With governmental support,
Samsung Electronics Co and the ministry-affiliated
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
are developing the homegrown Korean technology and aim
to complete it by the end of 2004.
The ministry
is expected to delay the selection of 4G service
operators, of which there are supposed to be two or
three, until the homegrown standard is ready.
"The Korean government must rethink its plan to
develop homegrown 4G technology in terms of efficiency
and stability," said Kim Hong-jin, general manager of
Flarion's Asia-Pacific division.
"It isn't
desirable to pursue homegrown technology because it
takes a long time for technical endorsement," Kim said,
adding the homegrown technology is at least several
years away from market readiness.
Growing
interest in the 4G network is mainly due to
disappointment surrounding third-generation (3G) mobile
phones.
As the commercial viability of 3G
service, which once promised to offer speedy Internet
connection via mobile phones that would enable users to
surf the Web like they do on desktop computers, has
dimmed, telecom operators are beginning to look toward
4G services.
On the eve of the era of
convergence between wired and wireless services,
fixed-line operators such as KT and Hanaro Telecom are
also leaning toward 4G technology.
KT has moved
ahead with its Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity)-based
high-speed wireless Internet service, but the technology
requires users be stationary to surf the Internet.
(Asia Pulse/Yonhap)
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