Korean mobile internet market.....
koreaherald.co.kr
LG Telecom leads mobile Internet
They can be spotted virtually everywhere: young people furiously punching keys on their wireless handsets as they strain to read words on their tiny screens.
Welcome to the world of mobile Internet.
LG Telecom (LGT), which recently changed its mobile Internet brand's name from ez-Web to ez-i, is the leader of the pack when it comes to wireless Internet. The company got a strong boost in the mobile Internet offerings when it acquired Dacom, a fixed line operator with the country's most popular online service Chollian. "Having access to Chollian's rich content has made it easier for us to offer the same in the mobile environment," said an LG TeleCom official.
Ez-i had attracted 1.2 million users at the beginning of the month to its mobile Internet service plans which range from 1,500 won to 9,900 won per month offering 40 minutes and 300 minutes of free mobile Internet service, respectively.
The company has allied with 150 content providers (CPs) who offer some 1,005 different contents. It has also dedicated 80 servers for ez-i service meaning each server connects 1-2 CPs. "By having a large network of servers, we can guarantee even speeds and avoid overloads that can potentially disrupt the service," the official explained.
The popular feature of the service is My Menu, which functions basically like bookmark on the Internet. For example, if one is interested in stock information, he can have that category selected as part of My Menu and each time he is logged onto ez-i, he is taken to the stock information site automatically. The user will is notified of any updates via his wireless phone.
The more than 1,005 contents are categorized into seven killer applications, including personal information manager, stock and finance, game and auction.
To enhance the mobile Internet experience, the company also launched i-Book, a wireless phone that features a larger screen that can accommodate up to eight lines of characters and a unique keypad that simplifies entering the Korean characters.
SK Telecom (SKT), the wireless market leader, launched its mobile Internet service last November as an on-line short message service (SMS) with about 300 content areas.
The lack of content obviously was a hurdle in attracting users but the wider range of content now available has attracted a huge following. The number of n.Top users which remained below 100,000 at the beginning of the year has jumped to over 1.5 million in April as the company began offering graphics and multimedia contents using the WAP (wireless application protocol) technology. As end of last month, there were more than 2 million n.Top users, according to the company.
However, those figures includes not only actual mobile Internet users but its fixed Internet site subscribers, greatly inflating the numbers. "Since about 297,000 mobile phones with Web browsers that can support n.Top have been sold through the end of April, the actual number of mobile Internet users are far lower than the company's claimed two million," said an industry insider, putting the actual number of mobile Internet service users at SKT at slightly more than 390,000 at the end of April.
"Our most popular services are global positioning service (GPS), stock information and news," a company official explained. GPS allows the user, as he moves about, to locate the nearest restaurant, gas station, bank and so on. Teenagers rave about one type of positioning service which allows a person to track-down another person's location as long as the finder has the other party's password. This feature is often used by teenagers to follow the trails of their pop idols.
Other features unique to n.Top are the CNN mobile service which provides round the clock news and mobile banking service.
There is no separate payment plan for n.TOP, users being charged per information and airtime. "We hope to get 7.5 million users by the end of the year with revenue projection of 65 billion won," said an SKT official.
Korea Telecom Freetel (KTF) launched its ambitious PersNet service last September with much fanfare but compared to the other competitors, its offerings are less than stunning with a mere 400 or so content areas. For example, although it boasts the most extensive GPS service, it has yet to offer mobile banking, something that SKT and LGT already offer.
The company has 500,000 subscribers using its PersNet service plans to bring that figure up to one million by the end of the year.
The current services are only the beginning of things to come. Starting October, n.Top users will get even faster service with the deployment of IS-95C that transmits data at a speed of 144Kbps and other operators are likely to follow suit early next year.
Further down the road, when IMT-2000 service becomes available, experts predict that most Internet surfing will be done through wireless handsets. "What we offer as mobile Internet at the moment is just an indicator of things to come, whetting the people's appetite for information anytime, anywhere," an LG Telecom official said.
The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) has forecast that the domestic mobile Internet market will reach about 100 billion won next year and as the voice traffic continues to account for a declining portion of revenue at telecom operators, they will look to exploit the data market. Chances are, mobile Internet users can look forward to even richer contents and improved speed and service quality as wireless operators fight to attract subscribers.
Updated: 06/22/2000
by Kim Hoo-ran Staff reporter |
