4G Now

KT Begins WiBro Wave 2 Service

KT, Korea’s WiBro service provider, announced the launch of WiBro Wave 2 service that offers the speed twice as fast as current system. 

WiBro Wave 2 takes advantage of MIMO (Multi Input Multi Output), one of the core 4G technologies, to increase the speed substantially. It can provide 37.44 Mbps in downlink and 10Mbps in uplink. Average speed is also twice faster than current service, making it possible to download a 3MB MP3 file in 0.7 second, and 700MB movie in 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
 
The service will be provided in Incheon, Goyang, and Suwon city from September and in 19 other cities around Seoul from October, said KT.
 
KT said that it is going to upgrade WiBro Wave 1 system so that subscribers can use Wave 2 service by upgrading software.

WiBro at the Crossroads

WiBro is the made-in-Korea technology for portable Internet. It allows people to use wireless Internet without disruption in a vehicle running 120km/h.
 
WiBro attracted special attention as it was developed by home-grown technologies following CDMA service. After two years of service, however, the results are rather shameful. There are only two service providers, KT and SK Telecom, after Hanaro Telecom unprecedentedly decided to give back the service license awarded by the government. Moreover, SK Telecom is not that enthusiastic about the service for fear that WiBro would have negative impact on its mobile service. KT is no different. It has subscribed less than 200,000 people to the service.

Against this background, the government decided to allow WiBro service providers to offer voice services. The government decision is seen to encourage KT and SK Telecom to increase investment, instead of being marketing-obsessed.
 
WiBro offering voice service means that there will be competition between WiBro and existing mobile services. Already, KT successfully demonstrated WiBro based Internet phone service. The company can provide the voice service anytime upon the government approval.
 
In case that WiBro based Internet phone proliferates, the landscape in the industry will be changed forever because it offers short, long distance, as well as international calls at far cheaper prices.
 
Of course, WiBro coverage should be expanded first and not small amount of money is required to establish infrastructure to make it happen.
 
At least, SK Telecom would be obviously not in favor of the situation. It might think that WiBro-based Internet phone is a critical blow to its profits. It would do everything it can do to prevent it.  
 
One of the arguments of SK Telecom is that allowing WiBro Internet phone is unfair because it paid astronomical amount of money to get the frequency band it now uses while WiBro providers are provided with the frequency at a tenth of the amount SK Telecom paid, or 100 billion won. 
 
KT also has its reason to oppose WiBro Internet phone, though it is a little bit complex. WiBro voice service might be good for KT because KT picked up WiBro as one of its new engine for growth. At the same time, however, the service can reduce the sales of KTF, its mobile service affiliate. Therefore, KT is in catch 22 especially at a time when it takes steps to merge KTF.
 
Another factor is the speculation that WiBro would fail to mainstream in the global market. Though it is likely to be selected as one of 4G standards, it lags behind Europe-led LTE (Long Term Evolution) system. Many of major mobile operators around the world had selected LTE as their next service platform.

Quality is More Important than Marketing for KT WiBro

KT, South Korea's WiBro service provider, is doing aggressive marketing in an attempt to have as many opportunities to meet potential customers as possible and thereby to become more approachable to them. For example, KT receives subscribers' applications at E-Mart, one of the largest retail chains in Korea and provides customers with a wide range of choices by introducing pre-paid plans.

Forging alliances with notebook manufacturers such as Asus, Kohjinsha and Pixel Lab Korea for joint promotion, the operator is now turning its eyes beyond the border. For travelers visiting Korea via Haneda Airport, the company provides WiBro rental service.   
"The opening of the rental counter at Haneda will help foreigners visiting Korea have easier access to WiBro," KT says.

The strong marketing drive is the preparation for the enlargement of service coverage to 19 cities near Seoul in October. The company wants to attract customers' attention in advance. 

A broader coverage is great, but it can not be the very solution to imminent problems that KT WiBro is faced with.

The coverage is still limited and the network quality is extremely poor. Complaints about service disruption and complicated process of service cancellation are ceaseless.

KT has about 180,000 WiBro subscribers and aims to reach 400,000 by the yearend, which seems to be unattainable. The telecom operator should realize much hype without quality improvement will get it nowhere.

"LTE Commercial Service to be Possible in 2010," Samsung

In the midst of increasing attention to 4G mobile service, Samsung Electronics said that Long Tern Evolution (LTE) standard development would be finished by 2009. It also said that there would be not much a problem to launch a commercial service of LTE in 2010 and when LTE standards are confirmed, the company would work on LTE-Advanced, too.

Samsung said that it hosts 3GPP Meetings for five days from August 18 in Jeju, the biggest island of Korea. The meeting is going to discuss standard technologies to offer commercial LTE service that provides up to the speed of 300Mbps. Discussions on LTE-Advanced, the 1Gbps 4G service, are  taking place, too.
 
The five working groups under TSG RAN (Technical Specification Group Radio Access Networks) will be discussing wireless access standards.
 
The 3GPP Meetings are participated by more than 600 experts from Samsung, LG Electronics, ETRI(Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute) as well as Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm, Vodafone and NTT DoCoMo and so on. Samsung, along with Nokia, has six members in the meeting’s executive body, which is the most among the member companies.

KT Introduces Prepaid Plan for WiBro Service

KT announced the launch of a prepaid plan for WiBro users. Customers who have subscribed to the plan are able to use WiBro service limitlessly for a certain span of time or days after paying fees according to the fixed rate of 1,000 won (about $ 1) an hour or 3,000 won a day.

Those who are using a USB modem or a smartphone with WiBro access, or who have bought a new phone can sign up for the plan. The plan is ideal for the users who want to access wireless broadband service whenever they want without being bound by an obligatory contract period.

KT says it will introduce payment plans catering for various use patterns of its customers. 

The telecom operator entered into an agreement with Shinsegae I&C and receives subscribers' applications for WiBro at 13 stores of Emart. With KT WiBro expanding its service coverage to 19 metropolitan cities near Seoul by October, the number of Emart stores where consumers can sign up for WiBro and buy WiBro phones will also increase to 40.