Apparently ETSI's plan to force the world to adopt the Ericsson/Nokia version of CDMA by declaring that only it among the five approved ITU IMT-2000 will be allowed in Europe is paying off. ETSI's message, "Our way or stay out of Europe."
koreaherald.co.kr
IMT-2000 operator selection criteria to be
announced July 20
How the government will go about selecting
the three IMT-2000 operators could be disclosed
as early as July 20.
The Ministry of Information and
Communication said yesterday that a preliminary
draft specifying the criteria for judging IMT-2000
business proposals would be drawn up soon.
The ministry is due to officially announce the
final IMT-2000 policy plan that defines the
number of operators, technology standard and
selection method Wednesday before convening a
discussion on application method and selection
criteria the following day. The ministry is expected
to brief the ruling Millennium Democratic Party
(MDP) July 18.
The draft plan for application and selection
criteria is expected to include a grading scale for
contribution amounts, qualifications for
participating in the third-generation mobile
telecom business, make up of consortiums and
suitability of shareholders.
Among the elements to be considered in the
technology standards category is equipment
supply, service and possibility for overseas
business. How a firm proposes to promote digital
content business is also reported to be among the
issues for consideration.
Meanwhile, the government appears to be non
too perplexed about the fact that all service
operators have declared that they would adopt the
W-CDMA (wideband code division multiple
access) technology in the wake of the
government's announcement that it would allow
for multiple technology standards.
SK Telecom, a world-leader in CDMA (code
division multiple access) wireless service, has
declared it would deploy the rival W-CDMA for
3G services, in due consideration of the global
market which is expected to deploy W-CDMA by
an overwhelming margin.
Even the state-owned Korea Telecom (KT),
which had previously deferred to the government
on the technology issue saying in effect that it
would go along with cdma2000 if the government
deems it to be in the national interest, last week
publicly declared that it would deploy W-CDMA.
LG TeleCom has consistently said that it would
deploy W-CDMA, motivated in no small part by
the fact that its affiliate LG Information and
Communications has been working on W-CDMA
equipment for a number of years, while the Korea
IMT-2000 Consortium, virtually out of the race
now with last week's announcement that three
operators will be selected, has also been in favor of
W-CDMA.
Interestingly, both KT and LGT last week
appeared to be cornering SKT into taking
cdma2000, claiming that the leader in the
technology and the company that is due to rollout
2.5G service based on cdmaOne technology in
October should be the one to deploy cdma2000 if
the government wants to see both standards used
here.
SKT countered those claims saying that if
cdma2000 is deemed to yield so little, then only a
token share of the market should be given to that
technology with the smallest operator deploying
the less favored technology, apparently in pointing
at LGT.
Despite what is being publicly said by the
service operators, the government is apparently
confident that the market will sort itself out on the
technology issue. "Operators and equipment
makers will make their decisions based on profit
maximization as well as in the interests of national
competitiveness. The government is confident that
all operators deploying a single technology
standard will not happen," said a senior ministry
official.
Updated: 07/10/2000
by Kim Hoo-ran Staff reporter |
