KT, the country’s largest fixed-line operator, said Tuesday that it will invest a total of 5.1 trillion won ($4.31 billion) to establish a total network for its fixed-line and wireless services by 2014.

Pyo Hyun-myung, president of the company’s mobile business group, told reporters that it will make investments in the 3W networks -- WiFi, WiBro and 3G -- on top of the new fourth generation radio platform technology LTE (Long Term Evolution).

When looking into KT’s investment portfolio, it will invest 250 billion won in WiFi, 550 billion won in wireless broadband, 1.67 trillion won in LTE, 2.4 trillion won in 3G and 100 billion won in cloud computing.

The portfolio was constructed under consideration that it could offer the customer-oriented 4G services with its firmly-built 3W networks.

“Establishing only the LTE technology could not become an alternative due to the projected amount of data traffic increase,” he said in a press conference. “This indicates that there needs to be a revolution in the terms of creating a total network.”

With the total network, it aims to attract up to an accumulated figure of 6 million registered smartphone users and 1 million registered tablet PC users by next year, as well as 1.12 trillion won in sales in the two sectors, said KT officials.

Its rivals SK Telecom and LG Uplus recently announced plans to put in large sums for the development of the new 4G technology which already has been widely in the talks in other countries.

According to Pyo, KT expects data traffic using the 3W networks to surge up to 295 times for 3G, 37 times for WiBro and 13 times for WiFi in the next four years.

The projection was reached in consideration of the increase in the number of tablet PC and mobile connected television users, which is most likely to be triggered by the introduction of Apple’s iPad here.

KT will set up 40,000 WiFi hotspots by the end of this year, creating up to 100,000 by next year. It currently has about 28,000 hotspots in place.

It also plans to expand its WiBro network -- which is now available in 19 cities mostly in metropolitan regions -- to open up services in 84 different cities and along major highways by March.

Pyo Hyun-myung, president of KT mobile business group, addresses a news conference Tuesday.                                                                                                                    The Korea Herald

“The era of one person multi device is projected to arrive soon and the consumers will be able to have access to seamless high-speed wireless Internet in most of the areas nationwide, even when they are on-the-go,” he said.

When questioned about its willingness to open its wireless Internet services to non-KT customers, it made note of its measures to provide the service at a fixed cost in a bid to beef up privacy of its users, said Pyo.

The development of cloud computing was also mentioned to be an actively discussed subject for needs involving big servers and data storages are rising with the increasing number of complex mobile applications and real-time data streaming, he said.

The firm has been looking into giving the related services by forming a task force earlier in May.

The firm, however, remained negative to SKT’s plan to offer unlimited data usage to its consumers under a certain payment plan and another measure to allow free minutes of mobile voice over Internet protocol service, or mVOIP.

“We still have doubts over the unlimited data usage plan as to whether it is equipped with the ability to provide unlimited services for video on demand or music on demand,” he said. “We also need to look more comprehensively into the government’s policy and other factors involving the mVOIP.”

In response to KT’s claims, its rival SKT said KT’s strong focus on increasing the number of WiFi zones may eventually lead to network overload.

SKT added that it was also aware of the estimated surge in wireless data traffic when forming its investment scheme for the 4G LTE technology and that making the LTE investment is a strategy adopted by many global telecoms.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldm.com)