GOOD NEWS FROM KOREA..........
Seoul earmarks W144 bil. to develop of core
parts of IMT-2000 equipment
The government is to invest a total of 144 billion won toward the development of
core parts for IMT-2000.
The Ministry of Information and Communication said yesterday that it has
earmarked 77.4 billion won of its own funds and attracted 66.6 billion won in loans
from the private sector through 2002.
Whereas the spending so far, some 34.1 billion won, including 19.8 billion in
taxpayer's money, has been for the development of IMT-2000 system modem and
parts technology, investments in the future will focus on the development of core
parts, according to the ministry.
"The goal is to achieve over 60 percent localization of the core parts necessary
for IMT-2000," said Son Hong, director general of the ministry's information and
telecommunications policy bureau.
While no breakdown was given of how the money would be split between
development of parts for cdma2000 standard, a technology standard developed by
Qualcomm, and the rival W-CDMA standard, Son said that the amount would be
roughly equally divided.
Korean companies do have about 90 percent of the leading technologies used in
cdma2000 standard while no leading technologies have been secured locally for the
W-CDMA standard, according to Son.
"By the end of 2001 we should be able to see 100 percent domestic production
of parts for the second-generation wireless handsets," said Son. As of the beginning
of this year only 63 percent of all parts used in 2G handsets are manufactured here.
Announcing the investment plan, Son emphasized that the Korean economy as a
whole has benefited from the country being a pioneer in the deployment of CDMA
standard. "Businesses realize this and that is why I am certain that the upcoming 3G
service will also include a service operator using cdma2000 technology," predicted
Song.
Although all the four contenders for the three 3G licenses have said they would
deploy services using W-CDMA technology, Son said that the government is ready
to use a carrot-and-stick to have multiple standards deployed. "We never said we
will leave it up to the individual companies. If you read government's plan for
awarding 3G licenses, we actually said that it will be up to the industry to decide on
the technology," said Son, hinting that the bidders should fine-tune their positions on
the technology issue before the end of September when 3G business proposals are
due.
Updated: 08/11/2000
by Kim hoo-ran Staff reporter |
