 |
|
| Australia
|
Jeong-Seop Park, Seoul Dacom to Develop WLL Technology Dacom Corp (www.dacom.co.kr) of Korea said it will jointly develop wireless technology with China, paving the way for the company to enter the huge telecommunication market. Dacom, Korea’s second largest telecommunications carrier, exchanged a memorandum of understanding on joint research into next-generation wireless technologies including broadband wireless local loop (WLL) and radio frequency (RF) modules, with the Fourth Research Institute (FRI), a state-funded telecommunication research organization. It is the first time that a Korean company will conduct joint research with China, whose telecommunications industry is growing rapidly. Mobile phone users in China topped 20 million in September 1998, and the figure is forecast to double to 40 million by the end of 1999 and further to 100 million in 2005.
Dacom’s joint research is expected to provide a good opportunity for the company to actively enter China’s market. Hwang Gyu Seog, senior managing director at the company, said that Dacom will further strengthen its business relationship with China. The Bejing government has not fully opened its telecommunication market to foreign companies. Dacom and FRI will collaborate for two years to develop a broadband WLL technology which allows delivery of voice, video and data services to users. “Specifically, we will jointly develop a modem offering a data rate of 384 kbps, high enough to handle voice, video and data,” said Hwang. The modem will be based on an asynchronous broadband code division multiple access (CDMA) standard called asynchronous W-CDMA. The 384-kbps modem for WLL can be used for IMT-2000. Dacom said it completed a development of commercial sample of IMT-2000, coming up with a W-CDMA modem application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), RF module and up-down converter. Dacom and FRI will also develop RF modules and integrated circuits for broadband WLL and IMT-2000, using them in user terminals for field tests in four cities, including Beijing. A system for the field tests, slated next year (2000), will be built by Hyundai Electronics Industries Co Ltd (www.hei.co.kr) of Korea.
JV Plant Planned “When the test is completed, Dacom, Hyundai and FRI are expected to set up a joint venture plant to produce WLL user terminal and equipment,” said Hwang. The WLL market for high-speed data-service will grow to 4.8 million lines based on 144 kbps in 2001 and 8 million lines based on 384 kbps in 2005. The joint research project will be conducted for two years on a budget of 4.5 billion won, of which the Korean government will provide 1.8 billion won. Dacom, which was established in 1982, started international telephone service at the beginning of 1992 connecting the US, Japan and Hong Kong. And the company has expanded the coverage reaching 233 regions in 189 countries. The company, which employs 3,000 workers, became the first PC on-line service in Korea to attract more than 1 million subscribers. The company recorded sales of 670 billion won in 1997, and they were expected to reach 700 billion won (US$600 million) by the end of 1998.
|
