Korea Telecom Launches 1x EV-DO

date: May 13, 2002 - source: BWCS

Korea’s second largest cellular operator has announced that it will be introducing high-speed mobile multimedia services based on cdma2000 technology later this month. Korea Telecom says it is now set to launch its ‘FIMM’ (First In Mobile Multimedia) offering after switching on commercial cdma2000 1x EV-DO services last week.

1x EV-DO (Evolution Data Only) is an upgrade of CDMA networks which offers maximum data transmission speeds of up to 2.4Mbps, thus qualifying it under ITU standards as a 3G service. However, with realistic obtainable speeds well below this Korea Telecom is not pushing its 1x EV-DO upgrade as a full-blown 3G service.

Korea Telecom’s larger rival, SK Telecom, introduced services based on 1x EV-DO earlier this year, although initially these have been restricted to users with portable computers fitted with wireless access cards rather than conventional mobile handsets. In December 2000 both Korea Telecom and SK Telecom were awarded 3G licences based on the alternative standard of wideband CDMA, which is favoured by European GSM operators and NTT DoCoMo of Japan. However, both Korean companies seem content for the moment to upgrade their existing cdma2000 networks, with W-CDMA services not expected to be launched until late 2003 or 2004.

Korea Telecom had almost ten million mobile customers at the end of March, while market leader SK Telecom claimed just over 16 million subscribers and the country’s third operator, LG Telecom, had 4.35 million.

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