KTF Launches 3.5-G HSDPA
Visual Communication Service

Telecom operator's next-generation mainstay network emerges

KTF has commercialized the 3.5-generation High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) service that allows visual communication in moving vehicles.
Dubbed "World Phone View,"KTF's brand-new service is available at home and abroad through global roaming.
Korea's second largest telecom operator announced the commercialization of the HSDPA service in 50 major cities, including Seoul and six other metropolitan cities, across the nation on June 30. The initial coverage of the 3.5-G service accounts for about 80 percent of the population.
KTF simultaneously unveiled two HSDPA handsets SPH-W2100, produced by Samsung Electronics and LG-KH1000, made by LG Electronics.
The HSDPA technology is likely to dominate the global mobile telecommunication market in the future, which will offer diverse handsets and services at cheaper rates, industrial analysts say. The commercialized JSDPA, an advanced technology ahead of the existing 3-G WCDMA, not only allows visual communication but also high-speed,
high-quality mobile Internet connection, so it will emerge as KTF's next-generation mainstay network.
HSDPA will eventually have a download speed of up to 14.4 Mbps. The newly released handsets have a download speed of up to 1.8Mbps, but the speed will be upgraded to a maximum of 7.2 Mbps by 2007 to dramatically improve mobile Internet services. As HSDPA's upload speed will be raised from 384Kbps to a maximum of 5.8Mbps in the second half of next year, interactive high-capacity data transmission and the development of diverse application services are scheduled to be realized.
KTF plans to expand the coverage of HSDPA service area to all 84 cities of the nation by the end of this year, accounting for about 91 percent of the nation's population. Capitalizing on global roaming, a HSDPA handset would eventually cover most countries of the world, including states using HSDPA, WCDMA and GSM.
Global roaming for the HSDPA service together with the WCDMA service will be expanded to include 25 countries in Asia and European regions, including Japan, Singapore and Australia by the end of the year. KTF plans to offer global roaming service to the GSM service area where HSDPA has yet to be commercialized, brining to 90 the number of countries where such services as voice, image, SMS, MMS and mobile data are available. The Korean telecom operator is expanding the global HSDPA roaming service coverage area and developing differentiated services for exclusive use abroad in cooperation with Japan's NTT DoCoMo with which KTF has forged a strategic alliance with Asia Pacific Mobile Alliance.
The newly released HSDPA handsets allow the existing CDMA service in non-HSDPA coverage areas. In particular, SPH-W2100, 21.1 mm thick as slim as any existing brands, is designed for providing terrestrial DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting) and other diverse services, while LG-KH1000, with such functions as duo slide are more for visual communication and visual chatting using Bluetooth.
Subscribers can purchase HSDPA handsets at a range of 500,000 won as a subsidy of 200,000 won is provided per unit regardless of the subscription period of the existing CDMA service. HSDPA subscribers will be given 900 minutes or 300 minutes per month for a three-month period in free visual communication.
Two or three more HSDPA general handsets and special handsets for data card and remote visual monitoring will be released by the end of this year.
KTF is to offer a promotion event which will allow HSDPA subscribers to make data transmission free of charge in the case of paying date fees of 14,000 won or more by the end of November. Thereafter, the HDDPA service charge system will be returned to the ordinary one where a free, unlimited visual communication is allowed in excess of 28,000 won. nw

KTF has launched the HSDPA service allowing visual communication.

Cho Young-joo, President of KTF