Korea contemplates 3G royalties and standards.
JohnG
koreaherald.co.kr
Operators oppose spectrum auction for
IMT-2000 service
With the Ministry of Information and Communication due to
announce its plan for awarding third-generation (3G) mobile
service licenses at the end of the month, the first public hearing
on 3G licensing failed to give any hints as to what businesses
may expect concerning number of operators, award method and
technology standard.
In his presentation, Kim Sang-taek, senior research fellow
at Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI)
said that 3-4 seems to be the optimum number of IMT-2000
operators.
Citing a recent research by the Korea Radio Promotion
Association, which concluded that each operator would need
about 15MHz to cope with the growing demand for data
services, Kim suggested four or less 3G operators.
On the standards issue, Kim said adoption of multiple
standards could be considered. There are two proposed
competing standards: cdma 2000, which evolves from the
CDMA (code division multiple access) technology currently
employed in Korea, and the W-CDMA (wideband CDMA) that
makes up 70 percent of the global market for mobile telecom.
"As neither cdma2000 or W-CDMA seems superior to each
other in our situation, deployment of multiple standards could
be considered," Kim said.
However, the position of the institute, affiliated with the
Ministry of Information and Communication, was less clear on
how the operators will be selected. While discussing the pros
and cons of the auction, beauty contest and lottery, Kim did not
indicate which would be preferable.
Chae Jong-suk, who heads IMT-2000 development at the
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
(ETRI), suggested a need for collective negotiation with
foreign companies that hold IPR (intellectual property rights)
on core technologies and proposed that Korean companies act
in concert with other Asian countries in negotiating royalty
fees. "Korean companies would be at a serious disadvantage if
we decide on a standard before conducting royalty talks," Chae
pointed out.
While the presenters were ambivalent, the telecom industry
was very clear about where it stood. The officials from the five
mobile operators and the Korea IMT-2000 consortium all
voiced strong opposition to a spectrum auction.
However, they differed when it came to the standardization
issue. While SK Telecom said it would prefer a single
standard, either W-CDMA or cdma2000, others favored the
adoption of multiple standards. Meanwhile, Hansol M.Com,
which is working with the two other PCS operators in forming
a joint network for IS-95C service, proposed that a standard be
adopted after the formation of the joint network.
Updated: 06/02/2000 |
