Internet junkies to have links in the palms of their hands

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Internet junkies to have links in the palms of their hands

A dozen years after the Internet first became part of our daily lives, the focus of Net development has been moving from increasing the speed of connections to making connections available anywhere, any time with a hand-held device. This year, Korean telecommunication providers and electronics gadget makers say, will be a landmark for information communication advances delivering the Net to your hand. Several experimental and perhaps revolutionary services are expected to be launched. WiBro and competitor By June, two new types of high-speed Internet service will begin ― one by Korea’s largest landline telecommunications company KT Corp., and the other by SK Telecom Co., the biggest cell phone service carrier here. KT plans to invest 500 billion won ($506 million) in a next-generation portable Internet technology dubbed WiBro, or wireless broadband, this year to provide wider coverage than wireless network services and faster connections than third-generation cell phone services. WiBro will operate in the 2.3 gigahertz radio band and will offer downloads from the Internet at a peak rate of 20 megabits per second. It can also be delivered to devices in cars traveling at 100 kilometers per hour or greater. The maximum uplink speed will be about 6 megabits per second, the same speed as the wired broadband services commonly available here. Pilot service is expected to begin in March or so in densely populated areas of Seoul, like Gangnam in the south and Sinchon in the west and Bundang in the suburbs. The full rollout of the service in Seoul will be completed by the end of the year, if current plans are carried out. Experts say that the service will be an urban phenomenon, however, and will not be economically practical for small towns with small Internet traffic data loads. SK Telecom says it will invest 600 billion won in a speedy Internet service embedded in cell phones called high-speed downlink packet access. The service will be available this year, the company said, but was not more specific. The service is an upgraded version of third-generation cell phone technology used in Europe, SK explained, and will deliver interactive games, music and DVD-quality streaming video. Video phone calls are also possible, as is global roaming service at theoretical maximum speeds of 14.4 megabits per second, about seven times faster than its third-generation predecessor. SK, like KT, says its service can be used in moving vehicles as well, even ones traveling at 250 kilometers per hour. Take that, KT, and watch out for the traffic cameras on the expressways. The real-life connection speed, the company says, will be at least in the range of 500 to 1.8 megabits per second in the initial stage of the service, and that speed will increase as more base stations are installed, reaching about 7.2 megabits per second next year. You’ll need a new cell phone to use the service, and both Samsung and LG will release suitable units in June, at prices estimated to be about 800,000 won ($904). The government is considering offers of subsidies to jump-start the new service, dangling the possibility of knocking up to 40 percent off that price. SK will also join the WiBro rollout, saying it has allocated 170 billion won for its own version of that service, which could be available as early as June. The SK version would be available in 84 cities across Korea. “It is possible that WiBro and H.S.D.P.A. will overlap in user coverage,” said Hong Won-pyo, KT vice president, the abbreviation referring to SK’s mobile Internet service. “But the merits of WiBro ― fast data transmission speeds ― and H.S.D.P.A.’s advantage in mobility could complement each other.” To spur that complementarity, KT is thinking about joining forces with its subsidiary KTF to offer the high-speed data service to embrace areas that WiBro will not reach. The mobile Internet, KT says, could bridge its fixed-line telephone dominance into the wireless sector. KT, which controlled 93.1 percent of that fixed-line telephone market and 51 percent of the broadband Internet market last year, has not yet gone head-to-head with SK. Its cell phone subsidiary, KTF, has been struggling to keep up with the cell service market leader. KT’s stretch into the wireless sector will also open the door for it to offer other associated services such as wireless Internet phones and instant messaging. “The portable Internet will bring in a shift from the wired broadband Internet we use at home and in offices,” Mr. Hong of KT said. “Mobile Internet will be the second phase of the Internet revolution.” Internet TV In the digital broadcasting sector, three service providers are likely to contend for control. KT is planning to launch an Internet-based interactive data broadcasting television service called IP-TV as early as the second half of this year, while terrestrial TV networks such as KBS, MBC and SBS began providing real-time, land-based digital multimedia broadcasting as a free service last December. Those moves are threatening TU Media, Korea’s lone satellite digital multimedia broadcasting service provider. TU Media is a subsidiary of SK Telecom, and its services are charged for on the basis of monthly usage. On the first of the year, the cell phone service operators KTF and LG Telecom began selling handsets that can receive terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting. SK, out of a desire to protect its TU Media satellite service and out of pique with the government’s authorization of the new competition, had been reluctant to join them, but it announced Thursday that it would retail those handsets in March to meet rising demand. The handsets are selling well, an LG spokesman said. “We are selling an average 300 terrestrial DMB phones daily,” he commented. “We would say the sales are remarkable in that the prices are higher than other kinds of phones.” TU Media is fighting back by trumpeting the wider range of content of its satellite service and its nationwide coverage. Satellite video-on-the-move services can be received clearly even in Korea’s extreme western and eastern island territory. The terrestrial service, like its satellite counterpart, will not penetrate far inside buildings or underground. But subway service may be available by June when repeaters are installed underground. Is Korea ready for take-out TV? Experts seem to think so, and believe that this broadcasting will mark a big change in the way people look at their cell phones. Perhaps so, but a look around the cityscape already shows how deep the love affair already is. Kim Dong-wook, a professor of public administration at the graduate school of Seoul National University, said, “Mobile phones’ major function used to be delivering voice. Now they are becoming comprehensive entertainment gadgets.” He projected that the rivalry between satellite and terrestrial DMB services would spur a burst of creativity in providing new content. And Internet television will also be a battleground for Korean broadcasters and telecommunications providers. Broadband-powered broadcasting can be viewed on a computer monitor or a standard television receiver with the help of a set-top box. KT said it planned to start its Internet television service, eventually to include 999 channels, in the second half of this year. But that date has already slipped by about a year, and the Korea Broadcasting Commission and the administration are dueling over who will have jurisdiction over the service. A senior manager at KT, however, said he believed that bureaucratic turf battle had nearly been settled. A KT employee commented, “Internet TV is not technically difficult. What matters is the government policy that strictly divides the business realms of broadcasting, cable and telecommunications and keeps them from invading each other’s domains.” by Lee Hee-sung, Seo Ji-eun
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