By Kim Tong-hyung
Telecommunications giant KT said it completed installing Wi-Fi hotspots in the country’s subway stations, allowing its customers to access free wireless Internet services on the platforms.
The company, which provides a wealth of mobile Internet devices such as the Apple iPhone, is also looking to expand its Wi-Fi coverage to the subway cars, as well as buses and taxies, by installing the vehicles with the company's portable gateway devices dubbed as ``Egg.'' The devices convert the signals of WiBro, a portable broadband technology that is the local variant of mobile WiMAX, into Wi-Fi signals. The Egg-based Wi-Fi services are already being tested on a number of Seoul taxis.
``The Wi-Fi hotspots in the subway stations of Seoul and the metropolitan area and the five major provincial cities have been completed. Considering that the demand for Wi-Fi access is high among students and office workers during the morning and evening commuting hours, we believe the consumer response to be explosive and positive,’’ said a KT spokesman.
The company plans to have 100,000 Wi-Fi zones by the end of 2011, which will make it the owner of the world’s largest Wi-Fi network operated by a single carrier.
In past years, KT and its bitter industry rival SK Telecom have been investing massively in futuristic communications technologies, such as WiBro (wireless broadband), but for now, the old and reliable Wi-Fi seems to be their meal ticket.
With Wi-Fi connectivity becoming conventional in the mobile phones of today, due to the popularity of feature-packed smartphones such as Apple's iPhone, wireless carriers are competing to expand their public Wi-Fi hotspots where users find free wireless Internet access, which is becoming an essential part of mobile competition.
Based on business plans revealed by the KT and SK Telecom, the country will have around 40,000 Wi-Fi hotspots by the end of the year. This still wouldn't come close to blanket coverage but nonetheless would represent a massive improvement from the 13,000 hotspots at the end of last year.