KT, South Korea's predominant fixed-line telecom operator, demonstrated its Internet-on-themove services during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit last month in Busan. The carrier handed over hundreds of WiBro terminals to top-tier politicians and businessmen participating in the APEC summit held in the port city, located some 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul. Those who carry terminals of the homegrown mobility-specific Web services will be able to check their e-mail or find traffic information on the road. There are two kinds of terminals - personal digital assistant-sized ones and notebook PC-sized ones. "This is the debut of WiBro. We are delighted to be able to make our initial presentation of this platform to world political leaders and famous businessmen," KT spokesman Cho Chul-je said. WiBro, formerly known as 2.3- gigahertz portable Internet because of its spectrum range, allows people on the move to remain connected to the Web at the speed of the current landline broadband. The government issued seven-year WiBro licenses to KT and SK Telecom, the country's biggest mobile carrier, in January, and KT is a frontrunner in bringing the fancy services into the real world. KT aims to deploy the locally developed mobile Internet platform next April and Samsung Electronics, the world's third-biggest cell phone maker, is now developing a variety of WiBro terminals. Samsung has already developed the much-awaited dual-band-dual-mode (DBDM) gadgets and they are presently on display at BEXCO, the convention center situated in southern Pusan. The versatile gizmo, which enables both mobile calls and WiBro access with a single device, is expected to significantly brighten the commercial viability of WiBro. "It is surprising that the DBDM phones are already unveiled. It will provide a big momentum for WiBro because people will be able to enjoy WiBro services through their cell phones instead of carrying two terminals at the same time," Woori Securities analyst Stan Jung said. Successful Landline Company KT, a former state monopoly, was separated from the government in 1981 and was fully privatized midway through 2002 after the Ministry of Information and Communication disposed of its 28.73 percent stake in KT. The company has successfully broken from the slackness typical of many public corporations and established a new corporate culture of putting top priority on customers. Such efforts have paid off handsomely as amply demonstrated by the unwavering support from end users for KT, the industry leader in fixed-line call and the high-speed Internet market. KT presently accounts for more than 93 percent of Korea's total 23 million landline customers. It also carves out roughly 52 percent of the broadband market with 6.2 million customers. The firm boosted Korea to become the first Asian nation to launch the high-speed Internet connection by kick-starting Kornet services in 1994. In other words, KT is heavily responsible for Korea's much-envied success in broadband. The country now boasts the world's highest per-capita penetration of the highspeed Internet with about 12 million out of total 15.5 million households hooked up to the always-on Internet. Buoyed by such technical leadership and strong market presence, KT chalked up 10.3 trillion won in sales in 2000 to become the first Korean telecom outfit to top 10 trillion won in annual turnover. The operator further expanded its revenue to 11.6 trillion won in 2003 and 11.9 trillion won last year. The entity's bottom line is by no means inferior to the outstanding top line as KT recorded 2.1 trillion won in operating profit and 1.3 trillion won in net income last year. But past cash cows of voice calls and broadband Internet have matured and their growth rate is slowing down to a snail's pace. In this climate, KT is engaging in new business endeavors to nurture nextgeneration growth engines. "One of our most urgent missions is to find new growth phases. We are required to dig out new businesses that we can develop with our resources and technologies," KT chief executive Nam Joong-soo said during his inauguration ceremony in August. Preparing for Another Take-Off Nam, who always puts customer satisfaction first, handpicks five new pillars to underpin KT in the foreseeable future. "Customer satisfaction will be achieved in a ubiquitous environment where communication services are available anytime and anywhere," the 50-year-old said. "As the leader of the ubiquitous construction, KT will focus on the nextgeneration mobile communication, home networking, media, IT services and digital content segments," he added. The five sectors are all potential-laden ones, which will be materialized not in some distant future but over the next few years as KT already has channeled its efforts and energies into them. Next-generation mobile communication is burgeoning with WiBro and KT launched home networking services, under the commercial title of HomeN, in Seoul and the surrounding Kyonggi Province last June. Home networking is an emerging technology aimed at connecting everything at home to the Internet in order to increase security and convenience. KT is jockeying to expand the services in time with the advent of the Internet protocol (IP) TV, which shows an unlimited number of video channels through the Internet pipeline. IP TV is the innovative example of the media business To nurture its capability in digital content, KT has moved briskly over the past several months and its most outstanding fruit is the acquisition of Sidus FNH, the country's leading movie studio and entertainers' management company. Earlier this month, KT funneled 28 billion won to buy a 51-percent stake of the nation's primary film studio, which produced 40 movies starting in 1995 and attracted 51 million moviegoers over the last ten years. "This contract means KT has become a digital entertainment firm. Even though we have only delivered content throughout networks thus far, we will make the content ourselves in collaboration with partners from now on," Nam told a press conference in September. Finally, IT services means KT will provide total info-tech services, thus increasing its added value in business. Such attempts will also fit into the firm's strategy of creating more value from legacy businesses. To foster the five new segments and upgrade telecom networks, KT plans to pour 10.4 trillion won over the next five years. Nam expected the large-scale investment would induce roughly 67,000 new job openings and related production worth 41.8 trillion won. "Through the spending, we aim to expand our annual sales to 17 trillion won by 2010 from last year's 11.9 trillion won," Nam said.