By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter


South Korea prides itself as a country living in the future, a land of ultra-fast broadband, unworldly mobile phones and ubiquitous, super-powerful wireless hotspots.

However, staying ahead of the pack can still be a headache. With the country's broadband penetration rate inching toward triple digits and the number of handsets surpassing heads, ``where to go from now'' becomes a legitimate question for Korean telecommunications companies, who will find only a limited number of reference cases from other markets.

Regulators have their work cut out for them as well, as they struggle to draw up new rules for a converged world, as the advancement in digital technologies continue to blur the boundaries between communications, broadcasting, entertainment and information services.

So obviously, Korean businessmen and policymakers could use a platform to share ideas with their foreign counterparts, who are experiencing their own transition periods in different parts of the planet.

An international group of more than 50 government, business and media representatives have been booked as panelists in the ``Korea Communications Conference 2009,'' which will be held Wednesday and Thursday at the COEX conventional center in southern Seoul.

Under the theme of ``Media Convergence and After,'' experts from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and China will discuss with their Korean hosts how business and regulators should respond to convergence.

On the sidelines of the forum will be the ``World IT Show 2009,'' scheduled for June 17 to 20 and will feature the latest products in electronics, wireless communications and computer software from more than 700 companies here and abroad.

The local heavyweights include KT, the country's biggest telephone and broadband Internet provider, SK Telecom, the No. 1 wireless carrier, and electronics giants Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics. Foreign high-tech companies such as IBM, Qualcomm and Fujitsu have also prepared booths.

``The sessions will focus on designing policies to improve the industrial competitiveness in the convergence era, as well as encouraging the growth of the digital content market and creating new business opportunities as broadcasting and telecommunication start to come together,'' said Lee Chan-woo, an official from the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country's broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, the host of the forum.

``We believe it will provide a critical platform for the international experts to review the current state of the broadcasting and telecommunications industries and gain vision to map new strategies for the future.''

The forum will be divided into 12 sessions and also a separate ``super-panel'' debate.

Opening the discussions will be Gaku Ishizaki, senior vice-minister of Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, who will offer insight on Japan's evolving information and communication technology environment and new legal framework in his keynote speech on Wednesday.

Emiliano Calemzuk, president of Fox Television Studios and News Corporation, will discuss Fox's changing strategies for producing and distributing content.

Georges Penalver, senior executive vice-president of group strategy and development for France Telecom, will discuss how traditional telecommunications players are moving to position themselves in the new value chain produced by convergence, based on the experience of Orange, a French mobile carrier.

The super-panel session, under the theme of ``The Challenge of Convergence: 2010 and Beyond,'' will feature high-profile executives from some of the world's leading firms in broadcasting, Internet protocol television (IPTV), mobile telephony and Internet services, who will share their experience and exchange ideas on business strategies.

American media commentator and former CNN reporter Kate Bulkley will moderate the discussion, and panelists include Yoshinori Imai, executive vice president of Japan's NHK, Carlson Chu, senior vice president of product development management of Hong Kong's PCCW, and Rohit Bhargava, the chief writer of the Influential Marketing Blog.

The regular session will be separated into three themes _ regulations and technology, content and services.

Jonathan Levy, deputy chief economist of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Ikuo Misumi, director of the IT security police office at Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and Suh Byung-jo, director of KCC's convergence policy bureau, are among the policymakers who will share their experiences in designing new regulatory frameworks.

On the business side, representatives from global media groups, including Time Warner, Disney-ABC International Television and the BBC, and telecommunications groups, such as Clearwire, will discuss the obscuring boundaries between previously separated industries and their newly emerging competitors.

Korea has established itself as a leading digital country with one of the world's highest mobile and broadband penetration rates that are in the high 90s.

The country is also a test bed for new technology. More than 15 million Koreans are equipped with handsets that support mobile television. Major telecommunications carriers are also gathering consumers for Internet protocol television (IPTV) and WiBro, a local variant of mobile WiMAX that delivers wireless, high-speed connectivity, even to vehicles moving at 120 kilometers per hour.

thkim@koreatimes.co.kr