Tantivy and Hanwha Announce I-CDMA Technology
Field Trial With Shinsegi Telecomm; Trial to Commence
in South Korea During Second Half of 2001
MELBOURNE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March
14, 2001 via NewsEdge Corporation -
individual.com
Shinsegi Telecomm wireless customers could be a
step closer to affordable, portable wireless
broadband solutions, pending the outcome of a field
trial announced today. Tantivy Communications
Inc., a provider of portable wireless broadband
technology based in Melbourne, Fla., and Hanwha,
a South Korean manufacturer of wireless
communications infrastructure equipment and
subscriber devices, today announced plans to
conduct a technology field trial with Shinsegi
Telecomm Inc., a South Korean provider of
wireless CDMA communication services. The field
trial will test Tantivy's I-CDMA(TM)
(Internet-Code Division Multiple Access)
technology and pending the outcome, will allow
Shinsegi to offer a powerful portable broadband
service.
Leveraging Shinsegi's existing cellular network
infrastructure, the trial is designed to demonstrate
I-CDMA's capability for enabling affordable,
high-speed wireless broadband services that will
offer portable users a rich wireless Internet
experience at an average speed of more than 256
Kbps. Hence, Shinsegi's subscribers will be able to
use their wireless devices to benefit from such
capabilities as surfing full-content pages of the
Internet, sending and receiving e-mails with large
file attachments and accessing streaming audio
and video files.
"Shinsegi has evaluated wireless broadband
technologies and products throughout the world,
and their decision to use Tantivy's I-CDMA
technology for a field trial demonstrates their
confidence in the technological achievements
we've made with Hanwha in our two-year
relationship," said Randy Roberson, Tantivy
president and CEO. "In just a short time, Tantivy
and Hanwha have developed a high-speed
wireless Internet solution for South Korea's
wireless Internet service marketplace that delivers
unparalleled speed, capacity and coverage
advantages."
The field trial with Shinsegi is scheduled to begin in
the latter part of 2001, following deployment and
installation of I-CDMA trial system equipment.
Following the trial, I-CDMA enabled data services
could be made available in select regions of Seoul
within the first half of 2002, with an ultimate goal of
making affordable data services available
throughout Shinsegi's entire cellular
communications network.
Under terms of the field agreement, Shinsegi will
trial and evaluate equipment provided by the
Tantivy-Hanwha team, in addition to the
associated software and documentation licensed
by Tantivy to Shinsegi during the trial period. Three
basic system components will be deployed in the
field trial including: subscriber units, leveraging
Tantivy's proprietary antenna technology for
portable and fixed point applications; base stations,
leveraging I-CDMA proprietary air-interface
technology that is compliant to Cellular IS-95
spectrum standards and a Wireless Internet
Facility, providing all Operations, Administration,
Maintenance & Provisioning (OAM&P) functions.
Hanwha will serve as systems integrator to
incorporate these components into Shinsegi's
existing network infrastructure.
"We recognize that I-CDMA technology offers
portable high-speed wireless broadband Internet
access by putting existing CDMA frequency
bandwidth into practical use in the world, as well as
the Korean local market throughout Shinsegi's own
cellular communication network infrastructure,"
stated Young-Ki Kim, president of Hanwha
corporation/Network Division. "I am looking forward
that this will mark an epoch of high-speed wireless
Internet by the success of the field trial at this
time."
"We recognize that the user demand for
high-speed data is rapidly growing in the Korean
wireless market," said Sang Ghil Lee, vice
president of Shinsegi. "The trial in Seoul will be an
important step to confirm that I-CDMA is one of
the most competitive solutions for our high-speed
wireless data service available today."
Optimized for portability, I-CDMA's unique speed,
capacity and coverage advantages make the
technology a more effective and efficient solution
for service providers to deploy. Tantivy's
technology can support peak data access speeds
of 368 Kbps for downloading and near
synchronous data uplink speeds of up to 224
Kbps. In addition, Tantivy's portable technology
can support 1,000 users per 1.25 MHz
channel--10 times as many users as traditional
high-mobility solutions. Tantivy's technology
provides broader coverage areas for users within
a cell site and ensures high data rates to the edge
of the cell, meaning users get the same grade of
service over the entire coverage area.
About Tantivy
Tantivy's portable wireless broadband technology,
I-CDMA(TM), makes anytime, anywhere access
to the Internet a reality. Tantivy uses a unique,
practical approach to invent portable technologies
such as I-CDMA, to gain capacity, speed and
coverage advantages necessary for affordable
wireless broadband Internet data access. Tantivy
creates silicon and software for consumer devices
and infrastructure equipment. A privately held
company located on Florida's Space Coast in
Melbourne, Tantivy was founded in February 1997.
For additional information about Tantivy, call
321-956-8846 or visit the company's Web site at
tantivy.com.
About Hanwha
Established in 1983, Hanwha supplied digital
switching systems for the first time in Korea. The
company manufactured and supplied TDX systems
that had been jointly developed with ETRI and
Korea Telecom.
Currently, the company has procured
state-of-the-art technologies in switches,
high-speed transmission, wireless
communications and the mobile communication
fields to grow as one of the world's best
telecommunications equipment makers based upon
its excellent technologies in the world markets as
well as the Korean market.
Moreover, since the second half of 1999, Hanwha
has been aggressively promoting overseas
marketing of CDMA terminals. In addition, clearly
targeting the IMT-2000 market, Hanwha is making
great strides with its much improved technical
power and top quality technical manpower to lead
the market.
About Shinsegi Telecomm
Shinsegi Telecomm is a leading provider of
wireless CDMA communication services to an
active base of more than 3.5 million subscribers in
Korea. Shinsegi won the second digital cellular
operator license as early as 1994 and launched its
service in April 1996, using CDMA technology.
The company started as a consortium of 245
shareholders, including three foreign companies:
Air Touch (10.7%), Southwestern Bell (8.25%) and
Qualcomm (2.46%). In Dec. 1999, Shinsegi
Telecomm entered into a strategic alliance with SK
Telecom, which is now one the of major
shareholders of Shinsegi Telecomm to reinforce its
market position as a leading CDMA company on
the international level.
The current situation of share ownership is as
follows: SK Telecom (51.19%), Vodafone Air Touch
(11.68%), and Qualcomm (1.95%) as of Dec. 2000.
CONTACT: PR21 for Tantivy | Jill Wigal,
312/396-9730 | jill.wigal@pr21.com | or | Hanwha
Corp. | Soo-jeong Park, 82-2-729-5644 |
pcrystal@hanwha.co.kr | or | Tantivy | Heidi
Hollowell, 321/956-8846 ext. 2317 |
hhollowell@tantivy.com | or | Shinsegi Telecomm |
Hunho Je, 82-2-3708-1971 | hhje@shinsegi.com |
