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In Search of 4G: The Development of Korea's WiBro

September 02, 2005 / Shan-Tung Wu

13 Page, Topical Report

US$1,330 (Single User License)

Abstract

The Korean government and communications industry have invested significant amounts of resources and effort into WiBro since 2002 in order to ensure the industry's continued development and to overcome the fact Korea lacks core patents in other communications fields. More aggressive than any other nation in the promotion of metropolitan area networking, Korea is emerging as the leading global testbed for WiBro, and by extension, WiMAX. However, competing technologies as well as the characteristics of the nation's domestic market may pose a challenge to WiBro development. At the same time, Korean players are working hard to strike a balance between control of core patents and the added exposure and development momentum that cooperation with international heavyweights provides.

List of Topics
Current status and possible future development of WiBro in Korea; Korean and international companies involved in WiBro; WiBro subscriber forecasts; comparison of WiBro with other mobile communications services in Korea; analysis of future coexistence between WiBro and other services.

Ace Tech, Agilent, Air Broadband, C&S Microwave, Eastele Systems, Etoos, ETRI, Hanaro, Intel, KISDI, KT, KT Freetel, KTF, KTH, KTN, LG, Ministry of Information and Communication, Neo Telecom, Nortel, Orthotron, Pantech, Posdata, Qualcomm, Samsung, Siemens, SK Communication, SK Telecom, SK Telelink, SK Telesys, Solid Technologies, TTA, TU Media, YBM

List of Figures
Figure 1 Comparison of WiBro with Other Communications Technologies
Figure 2 Roadmap for KT's WiBro End-Device

List of Tables
Table 1 WiBro Development Timeline
Table 2 WiBro Specs
Table 3 Comparison of WiBro with Other Communications Technologies
Table 4 Korean-International WiBro Development Relationships by Product
Table 5 Korean WiBro Subscriber Base Forecasts, 2006 - 2010

Large Number of Problems in Extending WiBro Services

The whole of Korea expects WiBro to become like CDMA, pushing the entire Korean communications industry forward. After the Intel-backed WiMAX forum entered WiBro's value chain however, although it will be able align with international standards through IEEE 802.16e, its further development will be very similar to that of WiMAX, making it difficult to live up to the government's expectations of increasing the Korean communications industry's competitiveness through WiBro and of turning WiBro into a main export force.

Samsung, in cooperation with ETRI, already completed testing of its WiBro chipsets in December 2004, but the size and power consumption are not yet so developed that the chips can be used in portable devices, and equipment cannot yet ensure high quality or adequate stability of data transmission. When roaming, connections are repeatedly dropped. Under these circumstances the WiBro system will only be able support a demonstration service during the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Busan in November. It remains to be seen whether Samsung will be able to solve all these problems before KT starts commercial services in April 2006.

Looking at the scale of the services market, although KT keeps stressing that WiBro and HSDPA, and fixed broadband networks are different kinds of services and do not have the same target customers, how many users will be willing to increase their communication bills to use a broadband service with a transmission speed of only 1Mbps, in a country where internet bars and hot spots are to be found on every street corner KT optimistically predicts that in 2010 when WiBro will be mature, there will be 8.2 million users, meaning a penetration rate of 17%, looking at the current population figure in Korea of 48 million. If WiBro cannot be developed into multiple-mode offerings and killer applications, these forecasts will almost certainly not be reached.

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