‘WiBro’ service rolled out

Korea unveiled a new mobile broadband system yesterday, one that offers the world’s fastest Internet connection to mobile devices. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute demonstrated WiBro, short for wireless broadband, in Daejeon yesterday. WiBro was jointly developed by the government, under the aegis of the Information Ministry, Samsung Electronics, and mobile service providers such as SK Telecom, KTF, and Hanaro Telecom. The service enables platforms such as cellphones and laptop computers to access the high-speed Internet and offers data transmission speeds several times faster than existing services. “The development of WiBro equipment shows that Korea is cutting-edge in mobile telecommunications technology,” Information Minister Chin Dae-je said. The ministry said the system reflects international standards, but is made purely with domestic technology, a move that industry analysts said was made to avoid a previous mistake. When Korea developed its cellphone technology standard, it used core technology developed by U.S.-based Qualcomm, leading to major royalty payments. Commercial WiBro services are expected in early 2006. Also yesterday, Samsung Electronics released a micro flash memory card, to be used in saving moving image files and pictures on cellphones and digital cameras. The card is only one third the size of existing memory cards, but processes data up to five times faster. by Wohn Dong-hee