‘Mobile Phone+ Wireless LAN’ First Introduce Next Month, Partnership of LG Telecom and Hanaro Communications.

A combined communication service of mobile phone and wireless LAN will be introduced.

A new economically priced communication service package combining various mobile phone services and benefit of wireless LAN will be introduced in next month.

On July 9th, the LG Telecom and Hanaro Communications, a high-speed internet service company has joined in partnership to penetrate the mobile phone combination service market. They will be the first local companies emerge in the market.

“Product development and other commercial services are almost ready. The service could be introduce to public in August,” said Director Kim Yun-guan from Strategic Development Office of LG Telecom.

The service uses a combination modem card system and in the wireless LAN environment, it enables high-speed Internet by 2M∼5Mbps wireless LAN. While on the move, it uses CDMA network and provides 144Kbps speed wireless Internet services.

The SK Telecom and KTF also plan to introduce similar services and it is forecasted that the competition in the wireless LAN combination market will surface soon.

In Japan, a new company called ‘Youzan’ has already commercialized a combination service of standard mobile phone (PHS) and wireless LAN. Also MIS and Sky Wave have begun their own wireless LAN mobile phone services. The trend of combination services is already strong in the international world.

Unlike SK Telecom, KTF and other competitors, the LG Telecom didn’t introduced the ‘EV-DO’ service with a maximum speed 2.4Mbps, thus showing an active interest in the wireless LAN combination service. LG Telecom’s strategy is to combine their own mobile phone service with Hanaro Communications’ wireless LAN product in order to provide comparably faster and cheaper service than their competitors’ EV-DO products.

The KTF has already an agreement with KT, which provides wireless LAN services for joint product development and currently considers their commercialization timing. SK Telecom is in process of beta testing of their wireless LAN service, which centers around universities, hotels and thirty other places. They plan to wait for market response before deciding upon commercialization.

Tae-Han Kim freewill@donga.com