LG Telecom Joins 3G Competition
By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
LG Telecom, South Korea's smallest wireless operator, has jumped onto the bandwagon of third-generation (3G) mobile services for which demand is growing fast.
The Seoul-based company said Wednesday that it will launch 3G services in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and other metropolitan areas next month.
LG Telecom subscribers will then be able to enjoy a variety of 3G offerings such as video calls, videoconferencing and fast data transmission.
``We have already installed more than 1,900 base stations in big cities. As soon as we release our three dedicated terminals next month, the 3G services will start,'' LG Telecom spokesman Lee Jung-hwan said.
``In late October, the service area will be expanded to across the country and we plan to come up with 10 more 3G-enabled phones by next June,'' Lee said.
Bigger mobile carriers SK Telecom and KTF embarked on 3G services midway through last year and expanded their service range nationwide in March.
KTF has attracted 1.28 million 3G users and SK Telecom has drawn half a million over the past year but LG Telecom has yet to debut its own next-generation services.
LG Telecom's attempt can generate risks because it depends on a rare platform.
SK Telecom and KTF adopt high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) while LG Telecom deploys evolution data only revision A (EVDO-rA).
The former is widely used worldwide but LG Telecom is the first to embrace the latter, the brainchild of the U.S.-based chipmaker Qualcomm.
``LG Telecom can build EVDO rA with about 500 billion won, much less than that necessary for HSDPA. So it can be more efficient,'' Mirae Asset analyst Kim Kyung-mo said.
``But it remains to be seen whether EVDO rA will interest people by providing quality services. We need to see how things evolve for the time being,'' he said.