KT, ReignCom to develop MP3 player
KT Corp., Korea's biggest fixed-line telecom operator, announced yesterday an alliance with ReignCom Ltd., the world's largest MP3 player maker, to jointly develop a portable music player that allows users to download music files wirelessly.
The wireless MP3 player will enable subscribers to KT's high-speed wireless Internet service Nespot to download music files when they are at "hotspots" near base stations.
The alliance should help KT promote its wireless Internet service, the telecom operator said in a statement.
KT so far has more than 12,000 hotspots nationwide and will add another 8,000 wireless-fidelity zones by the end of this year, according to company spokesman Cho Chul-jae.
The number of Nespot subscribers stood at 350,000 at the end of November, he added.
ReignCom, the Seoul-based digital music equipment maker that conducted the country's most popular initial public offering this year, is known worldwide for its snazzy MP3 player brand iRiver.
MP3 is a popular audio compression format on the Internet.
In the nation with the world's greatest high-speed Internet penetration rate, KT controls half of its broadband market of 10.5 million users and has 31 percent of its cell phone market through its subsidiary KTF, the country's second-largest mobile carrier.
2004.01.20
