By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Rendered irrelevant in the sector for years, SK Telecom, the country's biggest mobile-phone operator, says it will try harder to win customers over to its mobile broadband services.
Recently completing the upgrade of its network to double connection speed, SK Telecom introduced new user rates for its WiBro (wireless broadband) services (the Korean version of mobile WiMAX), Wednesday and said it is also working with Samsung Electronics to develop handsets.
SK Telecom, one of the country's two WiBro operators, found just 3,600 subscribers in its first two years of commercial services. The other, KT, a fixed-line telephony and broadband Internet leader, has about 170,000 subscribers.
Nobody every accused the wireless giant of being too enthusiastic about WiBro, which was basically half-forced into the market under government initiatives to develop next-generation communications services, a responsibility for a company legally labeled as a ``market dominator.''
SK Telecom made no secret that it would rather have its customers spend money on the more expensive data services provided on third-generation (3G) handsets.
The company's ``T-Mobile'' wireless Internet services, which offered similar speed and usage rates as WiBro, also explained its passiveness.
However, with its revamped network theoretically improving download speeds to a max 37.44 megabytes per second (mbps), about twice as fast as the current level, SK Telecom says its now sees a clearer market for WiBro.
To attract more customers, the company will allow more free connection time for fixed-rate subscribers paying 10,000 to 40,000 won per month. The company has also introduced a ``promotional rate,'' which allows a 30 gigabytes connection for 16,000 won per month.
The WiBro handset lineup will also get bigger. SK Telecom released two WiBro USB modems Tuesday, one from Samsung and the other from C-motech, and plans to eventually release WiBro-enabled smart phones and portable media players.
The company is planning to differentiate services, including developing a mobile version of Internet protocol television (IPTV).
``The upgrade to WiBro Wave2 allows us to get serious about marketing,'' said Ahn Hoe-kyun, an executive from SK Telecom's roaming and data business division.
Despite SK Telecom's renewed interest, it remains to be seen whether WiBro will ever be able to deliver on its pre-launch hype. KT's 170,000 subscribers are a drop from the 200,000-plus it had in June and makes a mockery of its prediction of attracting 400,000 by the end of the year.
The combined number of WiBro users is also way off the government target of eight million customers by 2010.
SK Telecom, which controls 50 percent of the wireless market, comes short of calling WiBro an essential services sector.
Although the company plans to expand its WiBro coverage to 42 cities by the end of the year and 84 by 2009, connection will be limited to ``hot zones,'' with the company not considering city-wide coverage.
SK Telecom is keeping mum about its subscriber target, but industry watchers believe that it will be 100,000 users for next year at best.
KT had been more aggressive in pushing WiBro, as it continues to search for growth beyond the saturated fixed-line sector. However, with the giant looking to merge with its mobile unit (KTF) by the end of the year, it remains to be seen if the company will retain its level of commitment to WiBro.
Some industry watchers believe that the WiBro's poor performance in Korea could influence the fate of WiMAX technology in its competition with LTE to become the standard in fourth-generation (4G) communications.
Jonas Lundstedt, vice-president of multinational telecommunications firm Ericsson (a supporter of the LTE standard), claimed that the experience in Korea indicates that mobile WiMAX is lagging by years.
More global wireless carriers, including Verizon, China Unicom and NTT Docomo are moving to the LTE camp, he said.