A week in tech

Korea

Internet
• Samsung announced the signing of an agreement with Arialink, a local carrier in the State of Michigan for commercial mobile WiMax service in the US. Arialink said it will start test service in the first half of this year before the launch of commercial service in the city of Muskegon, Michigan next year. The regional service provider offers WiBro service including broadband internet and voice communication on 2.5GHz band. In a separate development, the US will reportedly join the 5 other countries such as Korea, Brazil, Venezuela, Croatia and Italy where WiBro commercial service is available. Samsung said it has concluded agreements with operators in 7 countries such as Japan (KDDI), the US (Sprint Nextel), Italy (TI), the UK (BT) and Brazil (TVA) for the delivery and commercial service of WiBro.

• South Korea had 12.4 million broadband subscribers as of the end of February, up 317,000, or 2.6 percent, from a year earlier, according to data from the Ministry of Information and Communication. Powercomm signed up as many as 390,000 users in the past six months. Smaller cable-based carriers also registered 340,000 users in the past year. In contrast, Hanarotelecom lost 440,000 subscribers, if the users of Thrunet, a broadband carrier it had taken over, are excluded. The data shows the existing structure dominated by two heavyweights KT and Hanarotelecom is now being diminished, with Hanarotelecom expected to lose further subscribers because some existing subscribers may switch to regional operators. KT is also losing ground to the so-called "double play service", a service that pieces together high-speed internet access and cable TV channels, which is proving to be cheaper than the stand-alone package offered by KT and Hanarotelecom.

Mobile/Wireless
• The nation’s three wireless carriers, SK Telecom, KTF and LG Telecom, announced that they have began integrating applications and drivers used for PC synch as part of networking convergence. Many of their offerings such as MelOn, Toshirak, GXG and G-pang are designed to download fixed-line content to mobile handsets. SK Telecom has developed an integrated USB driver and a PC synch application, and asked mobile phone makers to adopt the new technologies. Earlier, the company launched a mobile phone with an integrated driver, and now plans to adopt the new driver for Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics phones. KTF is seeking a solutions partner to develop a USB integrated driver and a PC synch application, and LG Telecom is considering adopting SK Telecom's integrated driver. The three wireless operators say that they intend to improve user convenience since different types of drivers have caused users to experience some errors during installation. They also point out that manufacturers do not have to pay royalties to multinational firms any more with a new integrated driver.

• The South Korean government announced that it will set aside W46 billion ($48.3 million) over the next five years to create "special cell-phone districts", in a bid to help local cell phone operators test new products at cheaper prices. The districts will offer various frequencies to enable the testing of new handsets and other mobile devices produced by South Korean companies by 2010. Many domestic mobile companies are required to go to places such as Europe to test their new products, a process that takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money. The ministry said it will form a task force consisting of experts from government, industry and academia in the second half of this year and will determine the locations for the districts by the end of the year. The plan, dubbed "M-1," or Mobile One, is a follow-up on what the ministry unveiled earlier this year for its 2006 business blueprint, which was focused on boosting the ubiquitous environment. As part of its plans to boost the competitiveness of South Korean mobile companies, the ministry said it will step up efforts to increase the number of wireless broadband Internet users to 10 million by 2010.

• KTF announced that it will buy back W153 billion ($159.1 million) in shares this year, with the company not clarifying when the buyback would take place. Earlier, KTF said that it would return 50 percent of 2005 net profit to investors. In March, the company paid out W120.7 billion ($125.5 million) in cash dividend. KTF said the remaining W153 billion would be in the form of a share buyback.

Media, Entertainment and Gaming
• TU Media said it made a proposal to the National Assembly of South Korea on the easing of restrictions for large companies to invest in satellite broadcasting operators. With the proposal, TU Media is suggesting that the investment in capital limit be raised to over 49 percent from the current 33 percent. TU Media emphasized the need for additional investment from large corporation as they expect huge losses on their satellite DMB business due to the ban on retransmission of terrestrial content, money spent on content development and gap filler installments, and the slowing growth rate of subscribers. Sources are saying that the country’s Culture & Tourism Committee is currently working on a revised bill that will deal with this issue. Already, a bill has been submitted to raise the limit from 33 percent to 49 percent for Sky Life only, while another bill is asking that the limit be raised to 49 percent for both Sky Life and TU Media. According to the current law, large corporation can invest up to 33 percent in broadcasting companies. An official at TU Media said that the current restrictions must be eased so that they can receive the funding they need from their parent company in the form of equity investment.

Hardware
• LG Philips declared an 85.4-percent decline in its first-quarter net profit from the pervious quarter, a result it ascribed to drop in demand and selling prices. For the three months to March, the Dutch-Korean LCD joint venture posted a net profit of W48 billion ($50 million), compared to a loss of W790 billion ($827 million) a year ago. The company said its sales went up by 19.7 percent year on year but posted a 17-percent quarter-on-quarter decline to W2.4 trillion ($ 2.5 billion), figures that are ascribed by the company to a drop decline in demand and a fall in the average selling price in notebook and monitor panels.

Telecommunications
• SK Telecom announced the deployment of a roaming autodial service that will allow users abroad to make phone calls by only dialing telephone numbers excluding access number and national code. The service automatically creates the access number and the national code as a roaming service user dials the phone number. The new service is now for 149 types of WIPI phone users and auto-roaming subscribers, but will extend to all types of handsets and subscribers to semi-automatic and rent phone-roaming service from June.

• Nortel Networks, the Canadian telecom equipment giant, expressed its confidence in leading the launching of mobile WiMAX, also known as WiBro and HSDPA service, in South Korea. Nortel said that it would equip itself with WiMAX portfolios adoptable to wired and wireless telecom companies to expand its presence in the country. An official of the Mobility and Converged Core Networks said that the second half of the year would see changes of the dynamics in mobile WiMAX market that used to be led by Samsung. Nortel said that it would take up 50 percent of South Korea's WCDMA and 70 percent of HSDPA market once the services are available.

Ventures/Investments
• Among domestic firms in South Korea, Samsung Electronics topped the research and development spending rank in 2005, with the firm making a total investment of W5.4 trillion ($5.6 billion) in the area. Samsung was followed by LG Electronics, with W1.2 trillion ($1.2 billion), KT with W397.6 billion ($413.4 million) and Samsung SDI with W362.4 billion ($376.8 million). NCsoft topped the R&D spending in proportion to revenues with 19.9 percent.

inoddwaretechweek