KT & Intel collaborate on WiMAX technology (South Korea)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A memorandum of understanding has been signed between South Korea telecom operator KT Corp and US chipmaker Intel Corp to collaborate on WiMAX technology. As per the deal, from October 2010, Intel will produce a chipset with a built-in WiBro (the South Korean variant of WiMAX) module for the operator.
The need for any additional devices to connect to the internet wirelessly will be eliminated with the help of the chipset. Further discussions might take place between the two companies regarding the possibility of exporting Intel’s chipsets that include KT’s WiBro technology to other countries.
Deployment of a nationwide WiBro network utilizing a 10MHz profile as a channel bandwidth with a view to meeting the global WiMAX standard has also been revealed by KT. Previously, 8.75MHz profile was used by KT, creating difficulties for any operators looking to deploy WiBro in countries where 10MHz is the standard bandwidth.
KT Corp, SK Telecom expected to enter Polish mobile market
South Korean operators KT Corp and SK Telecom have shown interest in entering the Polish mobile market. According to Byung-Chul Won, a representative for Korean Eximbank, which provides financial support for Korean companies investing in Poland, the Korea Telecom is in talks with a potential Polish partner for developing new mobile services technology.
The duo is expected to be weighing up options including forming a joint venture (JV) with an existing network operator or talking an ownership stake in a local cellco, with possible targets P4 (Play) or Polkomtel (Plus).
SK Telecom is particularly interested in the mobile Internet market in the eastern European country.
Samsung unveils new Samsung Jet 2
www.WirelessFederation.com/news A new mobile phone has been added by world No.2 handset maker, Samsung in its Jet series roster, the Samsung Jet 2.
An enticing 3.1-inch 16M WVGA AMOLED display that offers users the most vivid and colorful touch experience is one of the unique features of this handset.
A powerful 800MHz application processor provides unprecedented speed and unrivaled performance while an English dictionary and an advanced Media Browser enables users to close several widgets at once through motion control.
Google Push Email is an additional feature and it also allows media content sharing technology among DLNA certified devices.
Worldwide mobile subscriptions to reach 5b in 2010
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The rise in the number mobile phone users will continue through 2010, according to a recent International Telecommunication Union (ITU) report. It has also been predicted that number of mobile subscriptions will surpass the 5 billion mark sometime this year if the current rate of growth continues.
400 million more mobile subscriptions will be there in 2010 as compared to last year. China and India will emerge as the biggest contributor to this rapid increase in the subscribers. While the developed countries have a penetration rate of almost 100%, the developing countries have just 57 percent of its people hooked to mobile phones.
Most advanced countries in telecoms and the Internet terms in 2008 has been named as Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark, Netherlands, Iceland, Switzerland, Norway and the UK (in Europe), and South Korea and Japan in Asia.
Nokia considers opening a factory in Argentina
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Opening of a new handset factory in Argentina by Nokia is on the cards thus, taking its tally of own-factories to ten worldwide. The handset production of the company is being moved to lower cost countries and the move came under controversy when it closed its Bochum plant in Germany.
According to Nokia spokesman Tapani Kaskinen, Nokia is investigating the possibility to arrange mobile device assembly in Argentina.
The company currently has ten factories in nine countries: Brazil, China, Finland, Hungary, India, Mexico, Romania, South Korea and recently it announced its plans to cut around 12% of its workforce at its Finnish factory as it switched the facility from low-cost handset production towards higher margin smartphones.
SK Telecom to launch LG Waffle, LG-SV770 handset (South Korea)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: LG Waffle, LG-SV770 handset manufactured by LG electronics will be launched by South Korea’s SK Telecom. The handset is a basic slider phone with a cool design weighs 95 grams and is 13.5mm thick.
There is 2.4 inch TFT QVGA display and is powered by a 900 mAh battery and it also incorporated with certain features like 2GB of NAND Flash memory, 1GB SDRAM, a microSD card slot and maps of the underground along with a 2MP camera to enjoy with the nice snaps.
Not to forget the FM radio for all the music lovers and Bluetooth to cater to data transfer. No announcement has been made till now regarding the price of the handset.
SK Telecom, KT increase investment in WiBro
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The investments in WiBro services has been planned to be expanded by South Korean communications firms SK Telecom and KT plan. KRW 140 billion this year and KRW 160 billion in 2011 will be invested by SK Telecom while KT has also increased its WiBro investment plan to KRW 1.2 trillion, from an earlier projection of KRW 1.1 trillion by the end of 2011.
The announcement follows a previous announcement by KCC that would give spectrum in the 800/900 MHz band to the company that allocates a bigger budget for WiBro.
At present, WiBro is only available in and around capital Seoul and a few other cities
U Mobile’s 33% stake to be sold to STT (Malaysia)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A part of the stake is agreed to be sold by Berjaya Group, the single largest shareholder in U Mobile which is Malaysia’s fourth-placed mobile network operator. The stake will be acquired by Singapore Technologies Telemedia (STT) in a deal worth around MYR626 million (USD183.81 million). STT is one of the major shareholders in Singaporean telco StarHub. The talks between two companies began in September 2009.
U Mobile’s hunt for a strategic investor would be ended by the completion of the deal. U Mobile needed an investor since September 2009 when Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and South Korea’s KT Corp announced to sell their combined 33% stake in the Malaysian cellco for USD200 million.
