Korea leads the World in 3G wireless

4 Nov 2001 at 17:06 GMT Timo Poropudas

“The international press is watching very closely developments in Japan and Europe to see who will be the first to roll out 3G. They are looking in the wrong place. 3G services have already been commercialized for twelve months in Korea.” This is what Doh Jin-myung, the vice president of Qualcomm Korea, argues in an article in Korea Times.

He claims that in the wireless telecommunications industry today, perhaps there is no prize greater than being the first country to commercialize third- generation (3G) services. 3G services have already been commercialized for twelve months in Korea. SK Telecom became the first company in the world to deliver 3G services when it launched its CDMA2000 1x service in October 2000.

The other two leading operators, KTF and LG Telecom, have also launched commercial CDMA2000 1x services as of May 2001. In Korea, unfortunately, there has been some confusion over whether or not CDMA2000 1x is, in fact, a 3G technology.

Doh Jin-myung also argues that the technology used in Korea is a true 3G technology saying that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the organization that defined 3G, recognizes three principle 3G technologies: WCDMA, TD-SCDMA and CDMA2000. CDMA 2000 1x meets all the requirements for 3G services laid down by the ITU.

Consider what is required for a 3G system. First, it needs a network that supports the high data rates and multimedia functions required by the ITU. CDMA2000 1x supports data rates of up to 153 kilobits per second (kbps) or more than the 144 kbps required by the standard.

Korea is also currently developing CDMA2000 1xEV, which should be operational in the first half of next year. CDMA2000 1xEV supports data rates of up to 2.4 megabits per second.

The second requirement for a 3G network is handsets that can support these functions. Currently, there are more different models of CDMA handset in the world than there are for GSM.

In the 3G market there are currently greater than a dozen domestic companies alone manufacturing CDMA2000 handsets commercially, and another 40 or so will offer them in the next couple of years.

Samsung and LG are the recognized market leaders in CDMA terminal manufacturing and these with other Korean handset manufacturers will be leading their export model developments to support the rollouts for other CDMA2000 1x deployments planned for North America, Latin America and South- East Asia over the coming months.

China is another market that is committed to CDMA and Korean manufacturers are very well positioned to address this market opportunity with terminal and infrastructure equipments.

By contrast, no other 3G technology has commercial handset availability in the global market today.

Korea has an estimated 2.9 million CDMA2000 1x handsets in circulation today, with an additional 10.5 million 2G handsets that are Internet- enabled. Users of the latest handsets can enjoy the benefits of a large color screen and video-on-demand, audio-on-demand, online gaming and MP3 music capabilities.

Handsets capabilities open the door to the third prerequisite for a 3G system: a range of applications and content that can take advantage of the new opportunities presented by the 3G landscape.

Currently, the most popular uses for CDMA2000 handsets are i-mode style applications, including character downloads, ring tones and text messaging. Internet access is also popular. However, users can also download video content including news, movie previews, entertainment information, animation and music videos.

SK Telecom's n-Top VOD Multimedia service, launched earlier this year, features a range of content including Flash animations, educational materials, digital books and even online hymnals and bibles. Content is available as streaming video, a download or a still image to accommodate all download speeds.