Korean to have 3G in 2003

date: February 25, 2002 - source: Siemens UMTS NewsDesk

Although many in the industry might have thought otherwise, South Korean mobile operators are planning to launch their 3G services in 2003. SK Telecom's 3G subsidiary, SK IMT, has announced that it will lunch a commercial 3G service in Q3 of next year.

Rival KT ICOM, KT corp's mobile unit, is expected to launch its next generation services "early next year." A spokesperson for the company said that it will "select 3G telecoms equipment suppliers in the first half of this year and complete a pilot service test by year's end." KT had chosen LG Electronics in February as its network supplier for demonstrating its 3G services during this year's World Cup soccer games in the months of May and June.

Both SK Telecom and KT will base their new services on the W-CDMA technology, even though both had earlier, reportedly, conducted pilot tests of cdma2000 1x EV DO technology in a couple of places in the country. There were indications that the two companies were not so enthusiastic in deploying W-CDMA networks, instead they were planning to upgrade their existing services to save costs. SKT has now indicated that it would spend US$1.22bn (EUR1.39bn) on deploying a W-CDMA 3G network to offer a nationwide service by 2005.

The country's smallest mobile operator, LG Telecom, is expected to operate its 3G services based on Qualcomm's cdma2000 technology.

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