SK Telecom dominated mobile telephony for the past decade, but rival carriers have loudly complained that has more to do with the company’s exclusive 800 megahertz (MHz) license than successful business strategies.
Now with the government moving to end SK Telecom’s monopoly and allow KTF, LG Telecom and a possible fourth carrier to share the prized spectrum by 2011, bandwidth is once again the biggest issue in telecommunications.
ccording to the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country’s broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, the smaller carriers are to be assigned 40mhz of spectrum from the 800 to 900MHz bandwidth.
Half of the available bandwidth comes from the 20mhz the government takes from SK Telecom, which currently uses two blocks combining for 50MHz within the 800MHz bandwidth. The company’s current 800MHz license expires in June, 2011.
The 900MHz bandwidth is currently used for FM radio and public operations. The 27MHz available within the 2.3GHz bandwidth, currently used by KT and SK Telecom for their WiBro (wireless broadband) services, the Korean version of mobile WiMAX, will be allocated to a new wireless carrier.
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