Hanaro Telecom ready to pursue IMT-2000 license
Hanaro Telecom's board of directors decided to go ahead with the bid to obtain a
license to become an operator of the third generation mobile telecom service, known
as 3G or IMT-2000, officials said yesterday.
The officials said that at a board of directors meeting at Renaissance Hotel in Seoul,
12 of the 14 directors gave their approval to the nation's second largest broadband
access provider's plans. Dacom executive Nam Young-woo opposed the plans, while
SK Telecom executive Park Myong-wook declined to express his position.
A consortium led by Hanaro Telecom and 36,000 reserve shareholders made an
unexpected comeback early this month to join the game to obtain one of the three
licenses for IMT-2000, sometimes referred to as dream telecommunication services.
Hanaro caused a stir by applying for the license at the Ministry of Information and
Communications on CDMA (code division multiple access) mode, while the existing
three bidders; Korea Telecom, SK and LG Telecom, all submitted their business plans
using the W-CDMA (wideband-code division multiple access) mode.
The Korean government has laid down an ultimatum that at least one of the three
IMT-2000 operators must adopt the CDMA mode which Korea was first to
commercialize. Industrialist analysts predict that W-CDMA will dominate up to 80
percent of the 3G market, thus the desperate bid by the three operators to gain the
license on the mode.
The Ministry of Information and Communication will announce the winners in late
December after a comprehensive review of the firms future prospective.
With the authorization of the board of directors, Hanaro is expected to accelerate its
preparations for the project, one of which would be to attract one million citizens to
become reserve shareholders, officials said.
As of now, LG is the biggest shareholder of Hanaro with 13.8 percent, followed by the
Samsung Group (9.0 percent), Hyundai Group (7.6 percent), SK Group (7.1 percent),
Daewoo Securities (4.5 percent) and Thrunet (4.8 percent).
By Kim Min-hee Staff reporter
2000.11.14
koreaherald.co.kr |
