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Mobile Carriers Avoid European 3G

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200404/kt2004042718024011800.htm

By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
Korea's mobile operators are making no secret of their reluctance to invest in the struggling third-generation technology of wideband-code division multiple access (W-CDMA) due to technical glitches.

Industry leader SK Telecom and runner up KTF on Tuesday said they tentatively earmarked 250 billion won in W-CDMA investment but only spent a negligible amount in the first quarter.

'The actual investment in the W-CDMA will be possible at the latter part of this year after the service becomes commercially viable by solving technical problems,' an SK Telecom spokesman said.

The commercial W-CDMA service was launched late last year in Seoul and the surrounding Kyonggi Province, but it has attracted little attention due to its bulky handsets and technical limitation.

Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics rolled out W-CDMA models but their sizes were around 1.5 times bigger than other sleek phones, as they need two chips _ one for the W-CDMA network and the other for calling and receiving signals from other networks.

The European 3G platform must also solve the so-called 'handover' hitch, or occurrence of signals disconnecting when handset owners move from the W-CDMA network to other networks.

As a result, SK Telecom and KTF each signed up 500 and 784 customers for their W-CDMA services up to now and the buyers are mostly those who work for related businesses.

The government is moving fast to make the sluggish telephony business take off and allowed subsidy of up to 40 percent earlier this month.

It also expects the W-CDMA will make noise this September when the slim dual-band-dual-mode phone, or one-chip W-CDMA phone, will be introduced.

However, carriers are more cautious in projection and experts question how they will spend the promised money.