Can Voice Give WiBro Second Life?

Can Voice Give WiBro Second Life?

By Kim Tong-hyung

WiBro, South Korea's homemade wireless network technology, has so far been the high-tech equivalent of Britney Spears' music career ― a letdown of monumental significance.

Now, in a desperate effort to save the faltering technology, policymakers are enabling WiBro operators to provide voice over on their networks. It remains to be seen, however, whether the new changes will be enough to give WiBro a pulse when the country already has more mobile phones than heads.

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country's broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, decided Tuesday to allow Internet telephony, or voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP), on WiBro-enabled devices, thus finally opening the way for fixed-line giant KT to sell mobile services.

WiBro handsets would be given numbers starting with ``010,'' a prefix used by all three mobile operators, which policymakers believe would make them more attractive to customers.

Also in an undisclosed meeting later in the day, the KCC commissioners voted to support plans by the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) to rewrite the country's media and telecommunications laws.

The suggestions by GNP lawmakers include controversial plans such as lifting the cross-ownership bans on newspapers and television stations and allowing bigger companies to own news channels.

The KCC also supported plans to introduce a ``cyber defamation'' law promising stricter punishment for cyber bullying and further limits on Internet anonymity. As for GNP plans to regulate major Internet companies under media law, the KCC called for clearer standards in identifying ``news-providing'' Web sites.

WiBro, which is short for wireless broadband, is a variant of mobile WiMAX technology that the country introduced in 2006 through KT and SK Telecom, the top mobile telephony carrier.

The government has been promoting WiBro aggressively in hopes of allowing local companies to drive the WiMAX standard by getting a head start and capture some of the benefits of homegrown intellectual property.

However, forced to compete with one of the most advanced wireless networks in the world, WiBro has struggled for relevance.

The government expected 11 million WiBro subscribers by 2011 with market growth up to 3.8 trillion won (about $2.8 billion) by then. However, KT thus far has managed to gather just 180,000 WiBro subscribers after two years of service, while half-hearted SK Telecom has just 11,000 customers. The two companies have yet to generate 100 billion won, combined, from their WiBro services, according to industry sources.

The country's mobile-phone penetration rate has exceeded 100 percent for people over the age of seven, and luring people to pay for high-speed Internet services on the road is proving to be a difficult challenge when fixed-line broadband coverage is just about everywhere.

There are also worries that the struggles of WiBro wouldn't bode well for WiMAX, which has Korea's Samsung Electronics as one of its biggest backers, in its fourth-generation (4G) race against Long Term Evolution (LTE).

KCC officials are confident that voice could give WiBro a new life, with consumers provided with a cheaper alternative to the mobile services provided by wireless carriers SK Telecom, KTF and LG Telecom.

KT, which has been struggling to cope with the decline in its voice business, is seriously considering using WiBro to gain a foothold in the mobile sector, although plans to merge with KTF, its mobile subsidiary, affect the calculation.

Cable system operators, looking to expand to telecommunications to move beyond a saturated pay-T.V. market, are also showing significant interest in WiBro.

``Voice over WiBro will provide customers with mobile services that are about 30 percent less expensive than current services, said Jo Young-hoon, an official from KCC's telecommunications regulations office.