by Chun Go-eun
toclair@ittimes.co.kr
On August 29-31, the ITU-R WP8F Conference was held at the Seoul Grand Hyatt Hotel to discuss the standardization of WiBro Mobile WiMAX's IMT-2000. This special conference was hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) and nearly 200 participants were at the conference, mostly ITU country representatives.
ITU-R WP8F is the board that specifically deals with the topic of IMT-2000 standard selection. This conference was a special meeting because ITU-T WP8F, which is mostly in charge of IMT-2000 and beyond, arranged this extra conference to specifically discuss WiBro's IMT-2000 standardization. The MIC sought the importance and the effect of this meeting to lead to standardization, thus gave final support to hold a conference in Korea.
New Minister Yoo Young-hwan, Chairman of Blust WP8F, and the chairman of Nikolich IEEE 802 were at the opening ceremony, and Minister Yoo young-hwan gave a welcome message to state his high expectation on SP8F's significant role on next generation mobile communication services like 4G.
The fierce debate was expected to discuss if WiBro would satisfy IMT-2000's minimal requirements for qualification. TTA addressed a presentation based on the top WiBro technology of the country that was studied and applied by ETRI, Samsung Electronics, and KT. With the conference, KT and Samsung Electronics ran two WiBro testing buses around the central city area, and included Namsan as part of the course. The direct experience opportunity was given to attendees that would give a positive influence to IMT- 2000 to be selected as a standard. The good news from Radio Assembly played a vital role for domestic companies to be WiBro Pioneers in foreign markets and the MIC gave all it had to make it happen.
And it seems to have worked. 155 International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) members from 38 countries gathered at a special meeting called Working Party 8F (WP8F) and made the decision to present Mobile WiMAX's, or WiBro's, IMT2000 Standardization to the Geneva, Switzerland ITU RA in the following month. The Ministry of Information and Communication was proud to present WiBro's competitive voice communication, multimedia service quality and hand-over ability between the base stations at WP8F.
Countries like China are still against the standardization of WiBro, but the MIC is expecting an optimistic final result at the ITU RA in Switzerland next month. Director General of the Radio and Broadcasting Strategic Planning Bureau Lee Ki-joo said at a meeting: "Seeing strong opponent countries and companies like Germany and Ericson changing their views on WiBro and getting answers to their questions toward WiBro's technological issues itself was a great accomplishment for us." The MIC is fully equipped with every possible questionnaire on WiBro for the Geneva RA conference in October. Director General Lee added: "We are also seeking to collaborate with foreign governments and companies to bring ITU member countries' consensus that could contribute a lot to WiBro standardization."
MIC spokesmen also have answers to the question on the stability of WiBro while driving at high speed on the road: "Stability is not part of the verification for international standardization on communication matters; however WiBro is already competitive amongst IMT 2000 standard products and has successful case stories. Moreover, the WP8F special meeting impressed many and brought a positive evaluation, demanding for more information on detailed technology. We are certain that we are already a step closer to 3G mobile communication standardization." The RA conference in October supposedly discusses the subject of standardization under the mutual agreement between the member countries, but in the case of opposing opinions, they will have a majority vote to determine standardization. WiBro is the real existing mobile communication technology service that is closest to 4G. By standardizing 3G mobile communication with WiBro, Korea expects a positive influence on the 4G market.
