Competition heats up in roaming service

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Competition heats up in roaming service

As more business travelers take advantage of mobile phone roaming service abroad, competition is becoming more intense and roaming services are becoming cheaper and more diverse. According to SK Telecom Co., which started the service two years ago, a total of 360,000 people used its roaming service from January to September, up 280 percent from the same period last year. KTF Co. and LG TeleCom Co. saw the number of roaming service users increase by fourfold. SK Telecom has roaming services under which travelers can take their phones with them and make and receive calls in various countries. This is possible since all mobile telecom service providers using the CDMA, or code division multiple access, standard, which is the dominant standard in the United States and Korea, use the same 800 megahertz frequency. SK Telecom subscribers can adjust the roaming menus on their mobile handsets to change the frequency channel to that of the country being visited. These subscribers will use phone numbers that are currently in use in Korea, and the calls are reconnected from the destination country to Korea, then back to the destination country. When traveling to countries where roaming service with existing handsets is not feasible, travelers can lease a handset at the airport and input telephone numbers that can be used in their destination country. Both KTF and LG TeleCom set their frequency at 1.8 gigahertz, which is different from the frequency used in other countries. Subscribers to the two companies’ mobile telecom service can borrow a handset at the airport. Those who have an X-6000 Samsung handset can automatically use it for roaming in Japan. LG TeleCom said its rates are as much as 26 percent below those of SK Telecom and KTF. GMobile Inc., a start-up company, began roaming service for those traveling to China. Mobile phone users can use their own phone in China through a connection to China Unicom’s networks. GMobile’s customer service centers can input phone numbers that can be used in China, as Korean phones allow the input of two numbers. GMobile said it charges only one fourth of what other companies do, although GMobile subscribers need to pay monthly fees. Other mobile telecom companies charge fees for the period in which the roaming function is activated. by Choi Hyung-kyu
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