KICS president interview Proactive cooperation with international standardization institutions needed The "Wireless Broadband World Forum 2006," which is being held at the Lotte World, Seoul, on May 22-25, 2006, will be a hotbed of presentations and discussions among Wibro (Wireless Broadband) experts from all over the world. WiBro's economic efficiency is expected to be around 9 million subscribers after 5 years, plus a 3 trillion won per year market (roughly $3.16 billion) and 18 trillion won (roughly $18.9 billion) industry induction in addition to creating about 270,000 people new jobs. This year's Wireless Broadband World Forum 2006 is a forum to commemorate CDMA commercialization's 10th Anniversary and particularly this year deserves special attention in that domestic WiBro business providers SK and KT are scheduled to enlarge service areas nationwide gradually by commencing commercial service offering from June 2006. President Kwak Kyung-sup of the Korean Institute of Communication Sciences (KICS) who is organizing this Forum with ETRI and ICA, with the support of Korea's MIC, said that Wireless Broadband World Forum's role is significant for the sake of next-generation mobile communication development such as WiBro core technology as well as 3G commercialization and 4G development. Keeping an eye on the fact that WiBro's aim is globalization, the president points out that proactive cooperation with Mobile WiMAX international standardization institution (IEEE 802.16) is necessary and wide collaboration with prominent foreign enterprises regarding chip/terminal/system development is pivotal. For instance, he named as one example that Samsung Electronics is collaborating with firms like Motorola, Lucent, Alcatel, Qualcomm, Vodaphone and BT. Based on experiences gained from CDMA, Kwak further emphasized that independent technology and commercialization are important and in that respect, its international standardization will bring about effects to make wire & wireless integration service going to 4G both nominally and virtually earlier and a turning point to pave the way for overseas telecommunication market inroads. Concerning international standardization, Kwak said that imperfection points have to be supplemented through networking with each other, pointing out that one-third is still incomplete regarding WiBro's international standardization at the moment. Especially, he advises that Korea has to act harmoniously with the United States because Qualcomm of the United States, holds sway over the main stream of the WiBro core technologies. The host president of this Wireless Broadband World Forum 2006 showed much interest in regard to WiBro's evolution as well about how current WiBro technology would evolve in the future. He elaborated on the core technology in relation to WiBro's evolution including TDD Duplex, modulation & demodulation, MIMO technology, All IP, OFDMA, Smart Antenna, Seamless technology, handover and WiBro mobility technology in detail. Among them, MIMO technology, which allows transmission of data at high speed from current 10Mbps to 100Mbps by 2010, will be perfected in 2010 or thereabouts, according to Kwak. President Kwak has committed to ensuring that the first Wireless Broadband World Forum 2006 being held this year can take root as a pan-international forum every year. He added that to allow this forum to take root as a pan-international exchange forum is the Association's biggest task. In addition, it will provide a venue for discussions about next-generation communication's research results, product demonstrations, standardization results and new service development.