KT shifting toward global market

Chairman pledges to expand cloud business

By Yoon Sung-won

KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu pledged to show tangible results in the company’s network businesses in the global market including the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

In a meeting with journalists before an event to commemorate moving into a new office building near Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, the chairman said the company will nurture cloud platforms, network systems, and media and energy sectors at home and abroad this year.

“We will work with related industries to strengthen the nation’s information and communications technology (ICT) sector globally, tapping into our caliber in networks and cloud platforms,” Hwang said.

“We already have done so in ICT projects in Rwanda and Tanzania and will announce visible achievements in the Middle East and Asia, including China.”

Hwang dispelled recent speculation that the company was downsizing its cloud business.

KT’s cloud computing affiliate KT Cloudware was merged with the group’s other IT subsidiary KTDS in December, three years after it was established as a new growth engine.

“The merger was to improve business efficiency and synergy between related affiliates. We will continue to invest and operate the cloud business at home and abroad,” a KT spokeswoman said.

The nation’s leading fixed-line operator said it has won a 43 billion won deal in Tanzania to establish a data center for an electric resident registration system and has finalized its long-term evolution network establishment project in Rwanda. It also won a contract to build a solar power facility in Vietnam, the company added.

KT revealed that it posted 344.7 billion won sales globally last year, up 12.7 percent from a year ago. The telecom company said it is aiming for more than 2 trillion won sales in its global business and from new businesses including energy, healthcare, medical science and security as well as the national disaster-emergency network.

In his New Year speech, Hwang reiterated that he will continue working to realize “GiGAtopia” to enhance people’s convenience and contribute to the national economy. GiGAtopia is a future vision based on a gigabit-class network infrastructure that the chairman promised to build when he took the position one year ago.

“Adding to the gigabit-class wire and wireless Internet services GiGAwire and GiGA Wi-Fi the company launched last year, we are about to roll out the GiGA Path, a service that is capable of providing fifth-generation (5G) speeds,” Hwang said. “In the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) and super connectivity, we have taken a leading role in standardizing these technologies and will continue to do so.”

The chairman is scheduled to deliver a keynote at the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, Spain, in March. He hinted that the 5G mobile network will be the main item in the speech.

“I will talk about launching the world’s first 5G mobile network and about a technology that can stabilize and equalize data transfer between IoT devices,” he said. “We plan to commercialize the 5G mobile service by 2020. Before that, we will demonstrate it at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, earlier than Japan at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.”

The new KT office, named “KT Gwanghwamun Building East,” was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. The 31-story building can accommodate 1,800 employees, the company said.