Puck,
re: 1x in Korea
Ya know ... I am really wondering about that article from the eTimes.
We all sort of jumped to the conclusion (at least I did) that there were faulty handsets ... and the controlling ASIC's ... at the root of the problem described by Yun, Dae-won who said:
However, customers who bought the new breed of phones have reported complaints to sales agencies or outlets that they were unable to make a call with the phones, not to mention, that cutting-edge additional services are unavailable. "Out of 10 sold out, about 7 has been reported with complaints," said a sales agency source. "Even worse, the complaints are mostly that they can't make a call, not that additional services are unavailable," he pointed out.
After reading the article again, and putting it in context with other articles I have read out of Korea ... I am not so sure we can conclude that.
I think that the inability to make a call could just as easily be caused by an incomplete network buildout, or poor network optimization, or both, and particularly in this case, in the area surrounding the agency that reported complaints with 7 out of 10 phones sold.
The most frequent published reports about problems with IS-95C service in Korea have been:
* Initial launch really a trial and "launches" have been postponed (frequently) until recently.
* Buildouts in progress, not complete
* Networks not fully stress tested or optimized.
* Unavailability of handsets. Product announcements, but until recently few handsets.
* Lack of services (particularly AOD/VOD) to justify high handset costs and differentiate from IS-95B
* Inability of current hardware/software to support AOD/VOD
* Lack of packet billing (recently approved and presumably about to be implemented.
* Slower average user data rates than the hyped 144 kbps
We do know that there are 70,000 1xRTT subs as of end of April, up about 30,000 in a single month.
It is a bit hard to swallow that the handsets are being sold in that quantity if the majority are defective and the article does not state that they are.
Here is a rather typical article about IS-95C out of Korea, called "Reality of 2.5G Mobile Telephony Seen Illusion" (Korea Times - May 6):
search.hankooki.com
It pegs the "launch" status as follows:
* On May 1 LG Telecom launched commercial 2.5G services covering 97 cities across the nation.
* Following that, KTF, the company formed when Korea Telecom Freetel and M.com officially merged last week, also kicked off cdma2000 1x services on May 2 in metropolitan cities including Seoul, Inchon and Taejon.
* SK Telecom, the dominant mobile phone operator, has been providing 2.5G services for about two months across six metropolitan areas.
Handsets or Network ... there is probably a fair amount of tuning to do for both.
Based on what we have seen reported so far, I think it may be premature to conjecture further.
Interesting to see if anyone picks up on this and we get further clarification.
- Eric - |
