Korea: Foreign tech firms eyeing 4G opportunity
atimes.com
Korea: Foreign tech firms eyeing 4G opportunity
SEOUL - Foreign technology companies are lining up to showcase their technical standards for the fourth-generation (4G) high-speed, mobile Internet network in highly wired South Korea.
But the South Korean government's plan to introduce its homegrown 4G standard raises questions about whether these companies are winning support from their local partners.
Presently, Flarion, ArrayComm, IP Wireless, Navini and Nortel Networks are testing, or have tested, their 4G technologies with potential South Korean operators, including KT Corp, Hanaro Telecom Inc and SK Telecom Co.
On Wednesday, SK Telecom, South Korea's biggest cell phone operator, will test high-speed 4G mobile Internet services with Flarion, a spin off of the Lucent Technologies Inc research arm Bell Labs.
"We will implement Flarion's 4G technology on a trial basis in an area around our research and development center in Bundang," said SK Telecom spokesman Kwon Chul-keun. Bundang is a city just south of Seoul.
The proprietary Flarion system, which has yet to be used on a commercial basis, would enable laptop and handheld computer users to wirelessly connect to the Internet, even while in a moving vehicle.
However, the South Korean company remains cautious about whether there is enough concrete industry support to get the Flarion technology off the ground.
SK Telecom, which is the wireless carrier for more than half of South Korea's 33 million cell phone users, is also gearing up to introduce another high-speed mobile phone service centered on Qualcomm's CDMA2000 1X EV-DO (evolution data optimized) technology.
The details of trials are not yet final and it is unclear how the phone company would combine both systems commercially, analysts said.
More troublesome are regulatory concerns. Currently, the Ministry of Information and Communication, South Korea's top telecom regulator, is pushing to mandate the use of homegrown 4G network technology.
With governmental support, Samsung Electronics Co and the ministry-affiliated Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute are developing the homegrown Korean technology and aim to complete it by the end of 2004.
The ministry is expected to delay the selection of 4G service operators, of which there are supposed to be two or three, until the homegrown standard is ready.
"The Korean government must rethink its plan to develop homegrown 4G technology in terms of efficiency and stability," said Kim Hong-jin, general manager of Flarion's Asia-Pacific division.
"It isn't desirable to pursue homegrown technology because it takes a long time for technical endorsement," Kim said, adding the homegrown technology is at least several years away from market readiness.
Growing interest in the 4G network is mainly due to disappointment surrounding third-generation (3G) mobile phones.
As the commercial viability of 3G service, which once promised to offer speedy Internet connection via mobile phones that would enable users to surf the Web like they do on desktop computers, has dimmed, telecom operators are beginning to look toward 4G services.
On the eve of the era of convergence between wired and wireless services, fixed-line operators such as KT and Hanaro Telecom are also leaning toward 4G technology.
KT has moved ahead with its Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity)-based high-speed wireless Internet service, but the technology requires users be stationary to surf the Internet.
(Asia Pulse/Yonhap) |
