Korea IMT-2000 attracts $100 million from U.S. firm
Korea IMT-2000, a consortium led Hanaro Telecom, has succeeded in attracting $100 million in foreign investment to
finance its aspired IMT-2000 service project, a Hanaro official said yesterday.
The official said WL Ross & CO. LLC, a leading U.S. investment firm, yesterday agreed to immediately supply Korea
IMT-2000 with $100 million. The U.S. firm also pledged to make serious efforts to provide Korea IMT-2000 with a
total of $1 billion in phases until the end of next year, on the premise that the consortium wins a IMT-2000, or third
generation wireless telecom, service license.
Korea IMT-2000, one of the four bidders for three available IMT-2000 service licenses, needs about 2.7 trillion won
(about $2.3 billion) to finance the lucrative project, including 1.3 trillion won it needs to pay the Ministry of Information
and Communications in exchange for being allotted necessary frequencies.
The official said the consortium has actively sought foreign investments and that WL Ross has offered the best terms to
date.
Last month, the Hanaro-led consortium made an unexpected comeback to the race to capture one of three available
IMT-2000 licenses by adopting the CDMA (code division multiple access) mode. Hanaro, which once gave up on the
bid, apparently made the decision following announcement of three existing bidders - Korea Telecom, SK Telecom and
LG Telecom - were set on adopting the W-CDMA (wideband code division multiple access) mode.
However, the Korean government has made an ultimatum that at least one of the three licenses will be awarded to an
operator of CDMA, giving Hanaro a big advantage over other firms to obtain a license. The winners will be announced
at the end of this month.
Meanwhile, Korea IMT-2000 has exchanged a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Japan's Hitachi, and U.S. Qualcomm to cooperate in developing IMT-2000 service systems and handsets, officials said.
Lately, Korea IMT-2000 has been actively broadening tie-ups with global telecom firms to better position itself to win
an IMT-2000 license.
The deals with Hitachi and Qualcomm come on the heels of signing similar MOUs with Motorola, Lucent Technologies
and Ericsson in November.
The Korean consortium and Hitachi, the sole CDMA-based IMT-2000 parts maker in Japan, plan to establish a
IMT-2000 service test bed by the first half of next year, dubbed "IMT-2000 Seoul Trial."
Qualcomm, the original developer of CDMA technology, has agreed to supply Korea IMT-2000 with CDMA chips
needed for early commercialization of IMT-2000 service.
Meanwhile, Korea IMT-2000 has also exchanged an MOU with U.K.'s EMI, stipulating the U.K. company will be the
main supplier of music and entertainment-related contents for the Korean consortium.
By Kim Min-hee Staff reporter
2000.12.05
messages.clubs.yahoo.com
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OVER 900 COMPANIES APPLY FOR KOREA IMT-2000 CONSORTIUM
Story Filed: Wednesday, December 06, 2000 12:48 AM EST
SEOUL, Dec 06, 2000 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) -- A consortium led by Hanaro Telecom, which joined a bid to obtain a
license for the next-century cellular phone service IMT-2000, said Wednesday that 924 firms applied for the membership in
the consortium as of Saturday.
The total applicants to the consortium, temporarily dubbed "Korea IMT-2000", breaks down to 217 in the capital
arrangement slot, 434 in the technology cooperation slot and 273 in the both slots.
Members of the Promising Information and Communication Companies Association (PICCA) formed the bulk of the
technology cooperation slot, the consortium said.
The consortium plans to select 250 to 300 applicants as shareholders after reviewing the applicants' financial conditions,
networks, customer bases and technological abilities.
Four consortiums, led by the LG Group, SK Group, Korea Telecom and Hanaro Telecom, are competing for three
IMT-2000 licenses.
(Yonhap)
(C) 2000 Asia Pulse Pte Ltd
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