Korean Carriers Swarm VoIP

Doug Mohney — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:12:22 -0400

Korean carriers are pushing VoIP in a big way, despite some regulatory challenges carriers want to have fixed.

Hanarotelecom, Korea's second largest fixed line phone and broadband internet provider, is scheduled to start aggressively promoting VoIP on Friday when it emerges from a 40 day "business suspension" for unlawful marketing activities.

The Korean government is expected to adopt number portability for VoIP as early as next month, a move that would benefit Hanarotelecom and others as telephony subscribers switch to cheaper VoIP services; currently, VoIP service requires a new phone number. Not helping matters is the 070 prefix used by VoIP numbers--a prefix typically associated with telemarketing pitches.

Hanarotelecom expects to gain a win with a "quadruple play" bundling its fixed line, broadband, IPTV, and VoIP offerings with SK telecom's mobile phone service, tapping into SK's 22 million customers.

LG Dacom, controlling only 1.1 percent of the fixed line market, has also seen VoIP success, bringing in more than 800,000 customers for its "myLG070" VoIP service, a 10 times increase from last year's numbers.

Analysts believe VoIP offerings will make a big difference in the competition between leased line services, with IDC Korea forecasting an annual growth of about 53 percent for the next five years.

KT, which owns more than 90 percent of the Korean fixed-line market, is worried that VoIP will cannibalize its customer pool; sales are already starting to decline in 2008.

For more:
- Korea Times reports showdown on Internet telephony

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Korea: Mobile WiMAX needs VoIP

Doug Mohney — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:24:21 -0400

For all the hype around the WiBro standard in Korea, it hasn't seen the adoption numbers carriers were hoping for. VoIP is needed to get to the next level, says VNUnet.com.

Korea is portrayed as the world's first and largest test market for mobile WiMAX when the WiBro service rolled out in 2006. The service is expected to have 250,000 users by the end of this year, up from 100,000 at the end of 2007. Analyst Ku Kang of the ROA Group attributes the lack of rapid market penetration to provide a killer app.

Kang says VoIP could be that killer app--if it can get through legal and other issues. Voice support is a must if WiBro is to compete with HSDPA and LTE. ROA group predicts the WiBro market can reach up to 2.5 million uses by 2011.

Korean researchers also are looking at upgrading WiBro to support up to 3.6Gbps to "slow moving" users and delivering up to 100Mbps to users in vehicles moving at speeds of up to 74 mph.

For more:
- VoIP key to mobile WiMAX in Korea, says VNUnet.com

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korea

Korean Carriers Swarm VoIP

Korea: Mobile WiMAX needs VoIP