KT Bets on Real-Time Traffic Information
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Telecommunications giant KT will put hundreds of road traffic cameras online as part of its plans to expand its traffic updates and travel news service to computer and mobile-phone users.
KT, the country's largest telephone and Internet provider, and runner-up wireless carrier, will spend 2.7 billion won (about $2.4 million) to install 380 new closed-circuit cameras at major traffic points in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, in collaboration with the Seoul Metropolitan Facilities Management Corporation.
Starting in June, the footage will be provided to KT customers subscribed to its wireless Internet network for mobile phones and laptop computers, and also to its Web-enabled televisions, Internet telephony and vehicle navigation services.
The CCTV images will also be accessible on Web site Paran (www.paran.com), run by KTH, KT's Internet affiliate.
KT, which is competing with industry rival SK Telecom for supremacy in telecommunications services, hopes that the real-time traffic information services will prove to be a valuable weapon as the competition becomes more about content than tech bragging.
And since the new cameras will be connected through KT's WiBro wireless Internet network, municipal authorities get a cheaper solution than building new fixed-line connections.
KT has been collaborating with the Seoul facilities management body since 2007 to provide real-time traffic footage on its wireless handsets, a service dubbed as ``SHOW CCTV,'' which charges 4,000 won per month.
``The project will allow KT to cement its status as a comprehensive provider of mobile traffic information,'' said Pyo Hyun-myung, who heads KT's individual customers' unit.
KT gathers customers for broadband Internet, fixed-line and wireless telephony, and also the WiBro portable Internet, which is the local variant of mobile WiMAX that is competing with Long Term Evolution (LTE) in the fourth generation (4G) standard wards.
The company, the market leader in the emerging Internet protocol television (IPTV) sector through QOOK TV, provides viewers with a wealth of interactive features, including video-on-demand (VOD), e-commerce and other data services on top of conventional television programming.