By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Third-generation (3G) wireless networks, heralded for their ability to handle high-speed data services, have become conventional in the mobile-phone front. However, it bears further observing whether the technology can extend its popularity to laptops and other portable multimedia devices.
Mobile-phone carriers like SK Telecom and KTF are bragging about gathering more than 12 million combined customers for their 3G services that promise larger options for video and data transfer atop higher voice capacity.
However, as the companies would reluctantly admit, most of their 3G customers, although attracted by the ultra-cool handsets, aren't ready to spend their money on anything other than voice, as their low data revenue attests.
Getting data traffic from 3G customers for laptops and portable media players (PMPs), on the other hand, would obviously be less of a challenge. And due to the expansion of coverage and the increasing demand of users asking for connection from anywhere at anytime, electronics makers are becoming more interested in adding 3G capabilities to their products.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) is expected to release a laptop with a HSDPA (high speed downlink package access) module by the end of the year and other computer makers are talking with wireless carriers over the release of 3G-enabled laptops too.
SK Telecom, the country's largest mobile-phone operator with more than a 50 percent market share, is also interested in getting more revenue from computer users too. The company said it is talking with ``two or three'' computer makers over releasing laptops with its ``T Log-in'' 3G modules and said 3G-enabled PMPs, targeted for students, are also to be released soon.
The renewed interest in 3G-enabled laptops is a departure from the skepticism of previous years. Local makers like Samsung and LG had released laptops supporting SK Telecom and KTF's 3G services in 2006, but gathered only minimal fanfare. Customers were put off by expensive usage rates, let alone the outrageous costs of the computers, and its low data rate was also a source of frustration.
However, SK Telecom says 3G laptop users will now see significant improvements in both speed and coverage. The company is also an operator of WiBro, or wireless broadband, the Korean version of mobile WiMAX, which supports a better data rate than 3G but lesser coverage.
SK Telecom is planning to allow wireless Internet users to connect to its WiBro network when it's available and switch to its 3G network when moving out of range.