| June 13 2002
The World Cup
isn't the only competition taking place in Asia.
Over the past few
months, Japanese and Korean operators have waged an increasingly heated
"war of words" over 3G services.
Japan's NTT DoCoMo has been very successful in promoting itself to the
world as a mobile services pioneer. But operators in Korea would like to
make it clear that they too have made significant mobile strides.
For example, although Japan's NTT DoCoMo launched W-CDMA service to much
fanfare in 2001, SK Telecom and KTF responded last month with the launch
of CDMA 1x EV-DO (Evolution Data Only) service, which has a data rate up
to 150kbps.
The Koreans are the
first to implement CDMA 1X EV-DO services.
Although the
services are not yet technologically mature, operators have done an good
job of promoting their technology to World Cup visitors and the world
press.
While a high-profile failure to deliver these new services could damage
their reputation, Korean operators feel the risk is well worth it,
particularly given the growing importance of data revenues to the bottom
line (see below).
Total Mobile Revenues and Mobile Data Service Revenues (US$m),
2001-2006
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