A week in tech, June 16 - 22

Korea

Internet
• Powercomm, Korea's third-largest broadband internet operator, announced its decision to change its name to LG Powercomm, a move aimed at boosting its brand recall. The company’s board of directors, which made the decision, will wait for the final approval of the name change from shareholders during a meeting next month. Powercomm, which registered 600,000 subscribers, is one of the three communications affiliates within the LG Group. The other two are LG Telecom, a wireless carrier, and Dacom Corp., a fixed-line operator. Powercomm said it aims to widen its user base to 1.3 million by the end of this year and grow to 2 million by next year. At the end of March, the total number of subscribers to high-speed internet service in Korea hit 12.4 million. With 50.1 percent market share, KT Corp. holds the biggest market share. In a separate development, Dacom is reportedly considering changing its name to LG Dacom which observers see as fusing LG’s communications firms under a single unifying LG name.

The US is No. 1 in having the largest number of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, according to the National Internet Development Agency of Korea. The US has 143.1 million IP addresses. It is followed by the European Union, with 75.1 million, and China, with 73.8 million. South Korea ranks ninth in the number of Internet protocol (IP) addresses, with a total of 43.4 million IPv4 addresses, or version 4 of the IP. IPv4 is currently the dominant network layer protocol on the internet. The report said that the country’s Internet industry posted a 13.1 percent growth in 2005.

• KT Corp., the country's dominant fixed-line and broadband operator, announced the start of its first commercial "broadband convergence network" service in the southern island of Jeju. BcN, which is part of the country’s Ministry of Information’s project aimed at advancing its network infrastructure, is a system that enables the convergence of telecom, broadcast and internet services via an integrated internet protocol. The company’s BcN is expected to deliver simultaneous voice, data and multimedia service between Jeju and other cities via a single terminal, and will cover some 2 million fixed-line and 500,000 multimedia service subscribers in the area. KT said it is strengthening its pursuit of digital content-associated businesses by acquiring domestic educational content companies. Earlier, the company focused its attention to educational areas and strengthened its learning site called KT Campus. It is making a foray into the e-library and e-book market. The company said it has formed a partnership with Kyobo Bookstore to provide book content online, and decided to co-develop an electronic library system in league with PDF solution vendor Unidocs. The company also plans to provide e-library APS for schools, enterprises and public organisations, and offer book content for individual users via Wi-Bro wireless Internet and IPTV.

• Electronic Arts’ (EA) online soccer game FIFA Online said it has recorded over 100,000 concurrent users. Game publisher Neowiz announced that in the first twenty days since starting open beta service, the game attracted more than 1.5 million cumulative users and over 100,000 concurrent users. In another development, YNK Korea announced the start of a closed beta service of Rohan this month and open beta in August. The company’s partner in Japan is Excite Japan.

Media, Entertainment and Gaming
• Considered as one of Asia’s most successful RPG Games, CABAL, said it is launching its English beta across Europe this month. Industry observers point to CABAL's clever use of combined weaponry action and smooth game play as factors that brought it to the top of the play charts in South Korea and the closed Beta launch in Europe. The game combines the best in console game action moves with online game community features. In addition, unlike many other MMORPGs, it also has an end to the months of battle at which time players can choose where they stand in the world war and mass guild warfare.

Mobile/Wireless
• KTF announced the start of commercial service of HSDPA in 50 cities in July, with the company deploying two HSDPA handset models - one from Samsung Electronics and another from LG Electronics. Under the program, KTF said it will be offering a subsidy amount of W200,000 ($209) for HSDPA phones, W100,000 lower than what SKT is offering. KTF revealed its plans to introduce three HSDPA tariff plans. The company said it will invest a total of W1 trillion until the end of the year, expanding its coverage to 84 cities. In another development, SKT said it has plans to go on an expansion that will cover some 84 cities by October.

• Three wireless operators SK Telecom, KTF and LG Telecom, announced their decision to launch the “Mobile Touch” service in the second half of this year. The mobile payment environment adopting mobile phones will adopt RF (radio frequency) chip cards in partnership with some 150,000 member stores that include E-Mart, Family Mart, Shinsegae Department Store, Mega Mart, Kyobo Bookstore, Marche and Crown Bakery. Under the alliance, SK Telecom and KTF said they plan to link RF features with USIM chip cards installed in WCDMA/HSDPA handsets, delivering the world's first RF in USIM cards mainly used for subscriber identification and global roaming. The two companies are also aiming at increasing the number of RF-enabled mobile phones to 10 million units by late this year. LG Telecom also expects the number of "Bank On" handsets with RF functions to be around 1.4 million by the end of this year.

• LG Electronics revealed that it has dropped plans to buy the handset- making unit of KT Freetel after negotiations broke down. LG Electronics signed a preliminary agreement to buy control of unlisted KTF Technologies, in March. The company said KT Freetel decided to end the talks after they failed to reach an agreement. KTF has a 73.9 percent share of KTFT. The company said it had intended to sell more than 50 percent of KTFT shares to LG Electronics, if the deal had been successful. Analysts are saying this development may cause a decline in the operating profits of LG in the second quarter.

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