LG Telecom leads mobile Internet
koreaherald.co.kr
They can be spotted virtually everywhere:
young people furiously punching keys on their
wireless handsets as they strain to read words on
their tiny screens.
Welcome to the world of mobile Internet.
LG Telecom (LGT), which recently changed
its mobile Internet brand's name from ez-Web to
ez-i, is the leader of the pack when it comes to
wireless Internet. The company got a strong boost
in the mobile Internet offerings when it acquired
Dacom, a fixed line operator with the country's
most popular online service Chollian. "Having
access to Chollian's rich content has made it
easier for us to offer the same in the mobile
environment," said an LG TeleCom official.
Ez-i had attracted 1.2 million users at the
beginning of the month to its mobile Internet
service plans which range from 1,500 won to
9,900 won per month offering 40 minutes and 300
minutes of free mobile Internet service,
respectively.
The company has allied with 150 content
providers (CPs) who offer some 1,005 different
contents. It has also dedicated 80 servers for ez-i
service meaning each server connects 1-2 CPs.
"By having a large network of servers, we can
guarantee even speeds and avoid overloads that
can potentially disrupt the service," the official
explained.
The popular feature of the service is My Menu,
which functions basically like bookmark on the
Internet. For example, if one is interested in stock
information, he can have that category selected as
part of My Menu and each time he is logged onto
ez-i, he is taken to the stock information site
automatically. The user will is notified of any
updates via his wireless phone.
The more than 1,005 contents are categorized
into seven killer applications, including personal
information manager, stock and finance, game
and auction.
To enhance the mobile Internet experience, the
company also launched i-Book, a wireless phone
that features a larger screen that can
accommodate up to eight lines of characters and a
unique keypad that simplifies entering the Korean
characters.
SK Telecom (SKT), the wireless market leader,
launched its mobile Internet service last November
as an on-line short message service (SMS) with
about 300 content areas.
The lack of content obviously was a hurdle in
attracting users but the wider range of content
now available has attracted a huge following. The
number of n.Top users which remained below
100,000 at the beginning of the year has jumped to
over 1.5 million in April as the company began
offering graphics and multimedia contents using
the WAP (wireless application protocol)
technology. As end of last month, there were more
than 2 million n.Top users, according to the
company.
However, those figures includes not only actual
mobile Internet users but its fixed Internet site
subscribers, greatly inflating the numbers. "Since
about 297,000 mobile phones with Web browsers
that can support n.Top have been sold through the
end of April, the actual number of mobile Internet
users are far lower than the company's claimed
two million," said an industry insider, putting the
actual number of mobile Internet service users at
SKT at slightly more than 390,000 at the end of
April.
"Our most popular services are global
positioning service (GPS), stock information and
news," a company official explained. GPS allows
the user, as he moves about, to locate the nearest
restaurant, gas station, bank and so on. Teenagers
rave about one type of positioning service which
allows a person to track-down another person's
location as long as the finder has the other party's
password. This feature is often used by teenagers
to follow the trails of their pop idols.
Other features unique to n.Top are the CNN
mobile service which provides round the clock
news and mobile banking service.
There is no separate payment plan for n.TOP,
users being charged per information and airtime.
"We hope to get 7.5 million users by the end of the
year with revenue projection of 65 billion won,"
said an SKT official.
Korea Telecom Freetel (KTF) launched its
ambitious PersNet service last September with
much fanfare but compared to the other
competitors, its offerings are less than stunning
with a mere 400 or so content areas. For example,
although it boasts the most extensive GPS service,
it has yet to offer mobile banking, something that
SKT and LGT already offer.
The company has 500,000 subscribers using its
PersNet service plans to bring that figure up to one
million by the end of the year.
The current services are only the beginning of
things to come. Starting October, n.Top users will
get even faster service with the deployment of
IS-95C that transmits data at a speed of 144Kbps
and other operators are likely to follow suit early
next year.
Further down the road, when IMT-2000
service becomes available, experts predict that
most Internet surfing will be done through
wireless handsets. "What we offer as mobile
Internet at the moment is just an indicator of
things to come, whetting the people's appetite for
information anytime, anywhere," an LG Telecom
official said.
The Electronics and Telecommunications
Research Institute (ETRI) has forecast that the
domestic mobile Internet market will reach about
100 billion won next year and as the voice traffic
continues to account for a declining portion of
revenue at telecom operators, they will look to
exploit the data market. Chances are, mobile
Internet users can look forward to even richer
contents and improved speed and service quality
as wireless operators fight to attract subscribers.
Updated: 06/22/2000
by Kim Hoo-ran Staff reporter |
