Korea has been consolidating its location as a mobile power, paving the way for 40 million subscribers and the era of one cellular phone per person after 23 years of mobile telephone service.
If the last 23 years were the first mobile revolution, the next-generation mobile telephone service including High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and 4G is expected to bring forth the second mobile revolution, which embodies Ubiquitous technology through cellular phones.
As diverse additional services such as banking, traffic, securities, and settlements become possible with one cellular phone from 3G, today cellular phones notify the second mobile revolution, changing as a central gadget of life, according to experts.
HSDPA trends
Experts point out: "The significance of nationwide 3G services for KTF and SK Telecom is more different than ever in that 3G is a gateway toward 4G mobile telecommunication, which is scheduled to be commercialized in 2010." Korea has already commercialized all 4G candidate technologies such as asynchronous WCDMA/HSDPA, WiBro and EVDO Revision A, the highest technology of synchronous 3G. In connection with this, experts assess that Korea has stepped up to 4G before any other country in the world.
In a nutshell, the videophone age is opening while the traditional telephone era falls. As SK Telecom and KTF pave the way for its full-scale nationwide 3.5G HSDPA service era from this year, HSDPA is expected to function as a main trend to decide the next 5 years of the Korea mobile telecommunications industry and to lead the second mobile revolution.
As the next evolutionary step after 3G WCDMA, the best feature of HSDPA is a screen telephone service which enables video conferencing with a mobile device.
Such a feature is possible since HSDPA's transmission speed was improved greatly in comparison with existing 2G speeds.
Such a technological feature further enables high-speed wireless data communication.
Hence, HSDPA can transmit fast, easily and reasonably high quality largesized multimedia such as moving images and MP3 files. In a word, users can enjoy content usually seen on a PC on their cellular phone as well.
Furthermore if High-speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) emerges from the second half of the year following HSDPA, it will be even easier for a cellular phone to upload or download diverse content.
Globalization's beginning
On top of that, another 3G technology is that global automatic roaming is possiblesince 3G business providers all over the world use the same 2.1GHz band.
Namely Korea's 3G subscribers can use cellular phones in any other country in Europe or the United States if there is any 3G business provider in the country.
Such global automatic roaming is an example of what was realized concretely with IMT2000 service headed at first.
Domestic 3G business providers such as KTF and SK Telecom have embarked already upon 3G roaming belt construction, which is linked to Southeast Asia, China and Japan. These companies anticipate that by 2010 most of the countries of the world will be covered by this 3G roaming belt.
Actually, KTF is embarking on roaming belt construction, which links Korea, China and Japan with 8 countries' business providers in Southeast Asia. SK Telecom is also propelling roaming belt construction, which links China, the largest mobile market in the world, and Korea.
HSDPA users have to access the service by fitting Universal Subscriber Identify Module (USIM) cards into the back of his or her cellular phone. This means that the diverse USIM-based service market will be enlarged. Experts said that through this, a second mobile life revolution seems to be expected, to say nothing of USIM-based diverse mobile services.
In conjunction with this, it is said that SK Telecom propels to enlarge USIM card volume this year and to convert to a complex function chip, which comprehends transportation, finance, settlement and security functions.
KTF also plans to provide users with banking, credit card, transportation, security, membership and coupon services by developing an integrated USIM card.
Global standard competition ignition
On the other hand, the TV-in-hand is opening as the global village goes wild with enthusiasm about TV services through cellular phone. Only Korea and Japan had commercialized cellular mobile broadcasting even two years ago. However, nowadays the United States, Europe and even China have joined its standard competition race.
Sony Ericcson's officials present the company's rosy blueprint, adding that onethird of cellular phone users all over the world within the coming two years will see TV on the move.
The service allows users to watch broadcasting anytime and anywhere. Users can enjoy this portable mobile broadcasting through 3G networks or separate mobile communication networks.
In Korea, TU Media commercialized Satellite DMB (S-DMB) on May 1, 2005 following streaming service in 2002. Terrestrial DMB began its service in December of the same year.
As of March this year, terrestrial terminal popularization numbers reached to 3.992 million plus 1.13 million in the case of satellite DMB. Their subscribers also surpassed 5 million people.
Experts wonder at its astonishing spread speed when comparing with the fact that cable TV subscribers surpassed 14 million after 12 years and Skylife subscribers in 2002 secured 2 million subscribers after five years.
Currently, a fierce global standard war surrounding portable mobile broadcasting is under way. DVB-H in Europe, Qualcomm FLO in the United States, and ISDB-T in Japan are gaining recognition degree respectively.
The greatest concern in the standard competition is China. In a circumstance when three technology standards -- DVBH, T-DMB, and DMB-T/H -- have been competing prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, T-MMB and StiMi developed jointly by a Chinese university and software company jumped into this standard competition race.
