War for the Wireless Internet Standards among Korea, U.S., Japan, and China

The competition on the international wireless Internet standards is being heated to grasp mobile phone and Internet markets. Vie for the initiative among companies from several countries is likely to be more heated, as Chinese largest mobile communication firm China Mobile joined the competition for the wireless Internet platform so far led by Japanese NTT Tokomo, U.S. Qualcomm, and Korean mobile communication firms.

Wireless Internet platform is a basic built-in program like the PC operating system to surf Internet by mobile phone. Backed by the increasing demand for wireless data through the world, the latency and spreading power of the market seems to exceed the operating system of `Window`, they say.

▽ Movement of the firms in U.S., Japan, and China = Major mobile communication firms from every country concentrate on expanding the technological standards they developed, as the companies which seize the wireless Internet platform could hold the market of contents and network.

NTT Tokomo is most quick by introducing `i mode` service, which was success in Japanese market, to Germany, Netherlands, and U.S.

Qualcomm, which has original technology of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), is putting up `BREW`(Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) a unique program download form. The BREW service of Qualcomm was commercialized by KTF for the first time in the world, and is now expanding its influence pivoting the countries adopted CDMA.

China Mobile from China became a new variable by declaring the development of its own technological standard named `monternet (mobile + Internet)`.

Competing firms from other countries including Korea are on the strain as China is world largest market of mobile phone with over 100 million cellular phone subscribers.

▽Strategy of `Mobile Power` Korea = Korean mobile communication circle tries to attain superiority in the competition for the world standard of wireless Internet with the merit as a power of mobile phone.

Lots of domestic firms are actively advancing into foreign markets like SK Telecom exported the `Nait` platform amount of 10 million dollars to Israel.

Domestic firms agreed to introduce the unitary standard `WIPI` for intensive advancing into foreign markets. And along with the introduction of mobile phone with standard platform, related contents will be introduced from this month.

Jung Man-Won executive director of SK Telecom said, ¡°domestic wireless Internet technology has excellent prospects on export, as world market recognizes its competitive power from the experience of commercialization. ¡°

Tae-Han Kim freewill@donga.com