There's been a lot of conflicting information on whether mobile WiMax is being hyped while at least 4 years out, or is close to commercial function. Last year the MIC in Korea allocated 2300MHz spectrum for WiBro to both SKT and KT.
Estimated 2008 WiBro device sales by Samsung of 2 million units is certainly not overwhelming, and there's no direct mention of DO in this article, but Samsung is reported to have contracts for WiBro work with KDDI, for example.
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vnunet.com
Competing 10Mbps Services to Slug It Out in Seoul
Simon Burns in Taipei, vnunet.com 16 Jan 2006
South Korea's highly-wired cities will be the arena for a multi-billion dollar battle between next-generation broadband wireless internet services this year.
Wireless data services offering theoretical speeds in excess of 10Mbps are on target for roll out in the country's capital of Seoul this spring, according to analysts.
If the plans succeed, Seoul residents will be the first in the world to sample both WiMax and HSDPA services.
Korean electronics manufacturers believe that their early experience with the new standards will give them an advantage in foreign markets, including the US and Europe.
Samsung is working on field trials of mobile WiMax with BT, Sprint and other telecoms operators, analysts say. The electronics manufacturer demonstrated smartphones and notebooks supporting HSDPA and mobile WiMax at CES this month.
Korea Telecom trialled a prototype of its WiBro (wireless broadband) system at an international summit last year, and plans to cover the entire city of Seoul by the end of 2006.
WiBro will conform to the new 802.16e standard, a mobile version of WiMax designed to cope better with moving users.
SK Telecom said that it will begin converting its existing mobile phone network to provide HSDPA by the end of the year, according to the Joong Ang Daily.
HSDPA is an upgrade which provides very high speed downloads on existing W-CDMA voice and data networks, and can work with existing base stations. WiBro, like WiMax, is a completely new standard.
In early tests, both WiBro and HSDPA have demonstrated range measured in kilometres and actual download speeds of around 1Mbps, although theoretical peak speeds for both systems are at least 20 times higher.
The new, untried services are a very expensive gamble for network operators. SK Telecom will spend $600m on its HSDPA roll out, according to press reports.
Korea Telecom, meanwhile, will pay around $400m just to set up WiBro base stations this year, Korea Investment and Securities predicts. Other estimates suggest that Korea Telecom's total investment on WiBro for the year will exceed $500m.
Korea Telecom, Korea's former national telecoms monopoly, which is struggling with falling income from its fixed line voice and data services, is looking to next-generation products like WiBro to pull it out of a profitability slump, although observers are not convinced of the wisdom of this approach.
"Given stagnant growth and intensifying competition, we believe this is not an opportune time for Korea Telecom to make bold investments into uncertain emerging businesses. It would be wiser to tackle cost efficiency issues including labour downsizing," said Shihoon Lee of Hyundai Securities.
Other Korean companies are watching Korea Telecom's giant WiBro project closely. For example, Reigncom, manufacturer of the iRiver MP3 player, hopes to sell 100,000 WiBro gaming and media player handsets this year, according to Hyundai Securities.
As well as introducing HSDPA wireless data services, SK Telecom is also likely to test the WiBro waters. "SK Telecom plans to invest in a WiBro business after evaluating Korea Telecom's success," said analyst Jong-gil Hong of Korea Investment and Securities Co Ltd.
If the plans go ahead, and media reports this week say they will, SK Telecom could invest over $160m for WiBro base stations in 2006.
Although HSDPA and WiBro appear to be in direct competition, Korea Telecom downplays the possibility of a price war, and said that it might eventually offer HSDPA services itself.
"It is possible that WiBro and HSDPA will overlap in user coverage," Hong Won-pyo, Korea Telecom's vice president, said last week. "But the merits of WiBro - fast data transmission speeds - and HSDPA advantage in mobility could complement each other."
To ensure that the new services take off quickly, Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication is encouraging mobile operators, such as Korea Telecom and SK Telecom, to offer subsidies of up to 40 per cent for buyers of WiBro and HSDPA-compatible smartphones and PDAs.
The Korean government hopes to see 10 million Korean households using WiBro within five years.
The early adoption of next-generation city-scale wireless internet services should fuel a wireless boom for Korea's manufacturers that will continue until at least 2008, analysts say.
For example, Samsung's sales of WiBro-equipped handsets, PDAs and notebooks are predicted to see rapid growth from the end of this year, and to exceed two million units globally in 2008.
Samsung will provide network equipment and handsets for a WiBro network in Venezuela, and has signed trial WiBro contracts with telecoms operators KDDI in Japan, Telecom Italia, Sprint and BT, according to Korea Investment and Securities. |
