Korea plays essential role in wireless broadband

Korea will be the world`s staging ground for wireless broadband service, says the marketing vice president of an international communications group.

"Korea plays an essential role in the world`s wireless broadband market. It is expected to become the first practical staging ground for WiMax-based service in early next year," said Dr. Mohammad Shakouri, vice president of marketing and board member of the WiMax Forum, a non-profit corporation formed to promote and certify compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless products.

WiMax stands for "worldwide interoperability for microwave access," a new standard for broadband wireless access using the 2.3 GHz band.

KT Corp., the leading high-speed Internet service provider with 6.1 million broadband subscribers, plans to initiate WiBro service, the home-grown, Korean standard of WiMax services, in April next year.

"A keynote speech delivered by Dr. Hong Won-pyo of KT`s Mobile Internet Business Group was well-received at the WiMax Forum in Canada where fourteen member companies showcased the world`s first WiMax application demos," Shakouri said.

About 80 percent of Korean households have broadband access service, according to Hong`s speech.

"WiBro has more edges than HSDPA, especially in cellular phone markets," Shakouri said. As of now, HSDPA (High Speed Downward Packet Access) and WiBro are competing against each other to commercially deploy 4G (fourth generation) technology in Korea. HSDPA is supported by SK Telecom while WiBro by KT. And Hanaro Telecom recently gave up its right to the wireless broadband market.

Shakouri noted Korea has a very established CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) market presence. He said that dual-mode client devices that combine WiBro and Wi-Fi, or WiBro and CDMA technology would be beneficial for customers.

CDMA is 3G (third generation) technology while mobile WiMax or WiBro based on OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) is 4G technology.

Each applies two different technologies - CDMA takes information and spreads it over time while OFDM, including broadband wireless, VolP (voice-over-internet protocol), cable TV, satellite TV and Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity), enables higher multimedia data rates.

"And even in cases of emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia and some Asian countries where the Internet infrastructure is not very well established, the wireless broadband service will be expanded, not necessarily going through the transitional LAN phase.

Because these countries don`t have the luxury of having sufficient fibers or lines, a giant leap into wireless is expected," he said.

Shakouri added that wireless service will give people in those countries access to the Internet within 5 to 10 km distances from the WiBro base stations in both business and home settings.

(siyoungh@heraldm.com)



By Hwang Si-young