Cornered! is a blog devoted, most of the time anyway, to telecommunications: local and global issues, technology, people and trends from the perspective of someone who's been reporting, analysing and commenting on the industry since the dark ages (BC - before competition). Sometimes serious, sometimes flippant, sometimes frivolous. Controversial, analytical, informative, amusing, but never boring; a vehicle for examinations of important issues and observations on my encounters and experiences in an industry where polarised views and hyperbole are the norm.
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Cornered! WiBro not the first mobile Internet service
Cornered! WiBro not the first mobile Internet service | WiBro not the first mobile Internet service |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Saturday, 01 July 2006 | |
 The launch by South Korea's KT corp and SKT of mobile broadband access services via plug in laptop cards, based on the Korean WiBro technology, is being hailed as a world first. For WiBro maybe, but for mobile broadband internet it's only three years behind Australia.In March 2003, Personal Broadband Australia launched its iBurst service, the first commercial service in the world based on the ArrayComm iBurst technology: the service delivered 1Mbps downstream and about 300kbps upstream, supported handover between base station sites and communications with a moving terminal at speeds up to 80kms/hr. That service is now available in Australia's largest cities and in Sydney is just one of no fewer than six options for broadband access via a laptop with a plug in card: Vodafone, Hutchison and Optus offer this on their 3G WCDMA network, Telstra on its 1x EV-DO network and Unwired Australia on its proprietary Navini technology. Unwired will be upgrading to mobile WiMAX as soon as it becomes available, and this is where the Korean networks do represent a first. WiBro is closely related to the mobile WiMAX standard (IEE802.16e-2005) (which now seems to be being branded "Intel's WiMAX - it's not, its just that Intel is pushing WiMAX for all it's worth, but WiMAX had a good deal of momentum before Intel got really serious). Koreas' WiBro networks are probably a good 12 months ahead of any equivalent mobile WiMAX network and will be closely watched by the WiMAX community around the world to see if performance comes up expectation. According to some analysts, WiBro could break out of Korea and challenge mobile WiMAX. ABI Research said last October that "Until recently, WiBro was considered only as a South Korean domestic network but that perception is changing rapidly. Built-in compatibility with mobile WiMAX (802.16e), coupled with already-designed terminals and network equipment could make WiBro, and the participating vendors, powerful players on the world market." ABI noted that "WiBro itself is attempting to expand globally with Japanese, South East Asian and US. service operators conducting trials." (in mid June KT was reported to be pushing WiBro in Vietnam). According to ABI Research senior analyst Andy Bae, "With Korean users' high demands for wireless multimedia services via the Internet and KT's aggressive 'WiBro as the Next Growth Engine' plan to compete with SK Telecom-backed HSDPA, WiBro in South Korea will be well-positioned for success." The Korean government allocated 100MHz of spectrum in the 2.3GHz band for WiBro services in December 2002. WiBro was standardised by the Telecommunications Technology Association of Korea (TTA) in early 2004 and in February 2005 licence for WiBro were issued to KT, Hanaro and SKT. Hanaro has since joined up with SKT . Following approval of the WiBro Phase 2 standard the government set a deadline of June 2006 for the launch of the s first commercial services.
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