Scenario
In 2006.
MIC(Ministry of Information & Communication)'s Strong Will and Support, as like the regulation about VoIP that was passed in 2005, The legislation about IpTV and the other Telecommunication & Broadcasting convergence services are passed in the end of 2006. And as the response to MIC's IT 839 Stretegy, KT and SKTelecom invest very aggressively on the Wibro network deployment from 2006 to 2007. The service coverage advantage, customer are very interested in this new service and its possibility, Wibro gets its initial competitiveness in the competition with WCDMA. In 2006, Wibro service subscriber is 100K.
In 2007.
Many special category telecommunication operators and 070-VoIP service operators start their VoIP services on Wibro with the competitive price program. Till 3/4 of 2007, Wibro terminal is only PCMCIA and module types but many terminal vendors including non-majors introduce their products. The produt-type are very diverse and the feedback from the customers is very kindly.
In 2008.
The Intel platform business based on WiMax from 2008 is a strong driving force for the terminal and PC makers and this terminal options help customers to move from Wired-service to Wireless. The wireless service are divided two categories; one is mobile service through CDMA/WCDMA and the other is wirless data service through Wibro. But the wireless data service-side, WCDMA fails because of the price program, not data-throguhput. Many customer want to use voice service over Wibro but mobile service has its own competitiveness in wireless voice service. So Wibro service is specialized on the wireless data service. Its success leads the e-community society.
In 2009 ~ 2010
Korea is the leading contury in Wireless Data Service, E-Society and Wibro Terminal and System business. Intel setups WiMax R&D center in Korea and many global major players want to build JV with KT and SKTelecom to open Wibro Service business out of Korea. 4G specification is delayed because of 3.5G still works well in the market.
WCDMA is further developed to meet the users' satisfaction in voice communication world. A demand for ubiquitous connectivity for the dream of "always on" constantly grows, and the market responds to the need with more accessibility to wired or WI-FI based connectivity due to strong demand on high-speed communication. As a result WiBRO finds difficulty to position itself neither in voice communication or data communication service. In addition terminal manufacturers are not too interested in producing WiBRO supported devices due to negative forecasting of the WiBRO market. WCDMA continues to prosper as it is not yet substitutable by WI-FI.