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Nokia Pushes 3G Business in Korea


Friday, 11 June 2004

Nokia, the world’s largest handset maker, is seeking ways to head the 3G league table in the Korean market

The handset maker, which never gained the expected market share in Korea, is now aiming at 3G service market of Korea including WCDMA and cdma2000 1x EV-DV

An official of Nokia Korea said on June 11,” We are continually contacting with Korea’s dominant mobile carriers such as SK Telecom and KTF for WCDMA handset supply.”

The company’s hopes for leading in the 3G race are rising as the Ministry of Information and Communication encourages domestic mobile operators to actively engage in WCDMA service.

Nokia said, ”If Korean mobile carriers want, we can introduce WCDMA handsets customized to Korean users.” Nokia’s potential customer, SK Telecom plans to invest 250billion won in WCDMA business. Nokia also expects its chip-sets to be adopted in EV-DV service of LG Telecom next year.

The company is confident about its EV-DV technology as Qualcomm, the undisputed leader in CDMA handset market, has been reluctant to EV-DV technology development, being skeptical of the marketability. Against this backdrop, LG Telecom said last year that it might choose Nokia chipsets for its EV-DV service, giving more boost to the handset maker.

Last August, Nokia succeeded in data communication through EV-DV technology for the first time around the world. At that time, its Nokia 2285 model completed data communication at the maximum speed of 3.09Mbps through EV-DV repeater of Racal Instrument, a wireless solution developer.


Meanwhile, Qualcomm, the late entrant in EV-DV market recently announced that it would supply EV-DV chipsets to LG Electronics. LG Telecom said in May that it would invest 400~500billion won in EV-DV by 2006.


http://www.telecomskorea.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=172&Itemid=2