Samsung Lands Iran Internet Deal
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest electronics company, landed a deal with an Internet service provider in Iran to offer equipment and technology for an upcoming wireless Internet network in the country, the company said.
Samsung's contract with Datak Telecom follows similar projects in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and represents the company's efforts to find more export markets for its portable Internet technologies in the Middle East and other developing regions.
Datak Telecom last year acquired a license to provide mobile WiMAX services in Teheran. The fixed-line Internet operator has just begun building the wireless Internet network and expects to provide commercial services sometime during the second quarter of next year.
Mobile WiMAX is currently competing with Long Term Evolution (LTE) in the standard wars for fourth-generation (4G) communications, which promise to deliver fast, ubiquitous broadband to a broader range of handheld devices.
However, with global mobile telephony operators increasingly lining up on the side of the LTE camp, the WiMAX bandwagon, led by computer industry heavyweights and device makers such as Intel and Samsung, has been getting less noise.
There are observations that WiMAX will be reduced as a niche technology, finding demand in countries with less advanced fixed-line networks, a description that fits Iran.
Although among the biggest names in the WiMAX camp, Samsung is also hedging its bets on LTE, which is also the choice of its Korean rival, LG Electronics.
``Mobile WiMAX will bring a renaissance of broadband services in Iran,'' Samsung quoted Kim Woon-sub, the company's vice president and head of its network business, as saying.
``We will continue to be committed to spreading mobile WiMAX services further across countries in the Middle East."