As the saying goes, "You snooze, you lose." Such is the case for LG Telecom, Korea's 3rd-largest carrier behind
SK Telecom and
KTF, which purchased a license to deploy 3G services on the 2GHz band in 2001 for 1.15 trillion won ($1.2 billion, give or take), but has yet to do anything with said license. According to the terms of the license agreement, the services had to be in place by the end of last month, and an advisory board has subsequently given the thumbs-up to Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication to yoink the license. LG Telecom's CEO, Nam Yong, has said that deploying 3G at 2GHz would be counter to market trends and they'd like to upgrade their 1.8GHz network instead, but it appears the heart-of-stone MIC is going ahead with the revocation nonetheless. And here's the real kicker: Korean law stipulates that any company failing to make good on a 3G rollout remove its chief executive. Oh, but don't you worry about Mr. Nam; rumor has it he'll likely land comfortably somewhere within LGT's corporate parent -- you guessed it -- LG Electronics.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Donald @ Jul 15th 2006 9:32PM
Anyone wish they'd bring that law to the US so Cingular could kick Stan out the door?
-_- @ Jul 15th 2006 10:02PM
sure, then we should revoke people's drivers licenses if they don't drive for more than a few months and make them sell their car for $1000 under KBB value.
if you're sitting on a license because you're developing new tech for it, go right ahead.
if you're sitting on a license because you forgot about it, you deserve to be smacked in the face.
if you're sitting on a license because you just want to be an a**hole, or sell it for more money, go to h-e-double-hockey-sticks, you bastard.
p.s.: my cluelessness has led me to this question: who the [blank] is Stan?
Tazo @ Jul 16th 2006 3:20AM
Why doesn't all of the US upgrade itself already? I mean, I have a 3g cdma phone myself, but I am sick of the US lagging so much in this world.
-_- @ Jul 16th 2006 7:54AM
upgrading a 3g network (on gsm, anyway) is difficult, and here's why:
gsm is based on tdma, cdma's sibling. tdma (time-division-multiple-access) assigns a time to your phone call, so it isn't mixed up with all the other calls being processed. for example, you place a call at 3:30:21 pm, your phone call is tagged with that number, so you don't get mixed up with someone calling at 3:30:22.
gsm (global standard for mobile comunnicaitons) does the same thing. however, umts (universal mobile telecom system), the 3g gsm network, does NOT run off of gsm or tdma, it runs on cdma (code division multiple access), namely, wcdma (no clue on what "w" stands for).
so, basically, to create a 3g gsm phone, engineers must design a chip that works with gsm and wcdma; two entirely differnet networks. and, it seems, that 3g gsm phones for the us have to be reworked to fcc standards, which are very stringent. that's why it's taken so long.
another factor are the bands; gsm has 4 (850, 900, 1800, 1900), umts (wcdma) has 3 (850, 1900, 2100). now hsdpa (high-speed-download-packet-access) is an advanced form of umts, like edge is an advanced form of gprs, and meets ev-do r0 speeds. hsupa (high-speed-uplink-packet-access) is further advanced, and meets ev-do rA speeds, but is very far of for the us.
if you're confused, go to wikipedia and search for "3g".
Donald @ Jul 16th 2006 11:11AM
"who the [blank] is Stan?"
Stan Stigman - Cingular's CEO.
-_- @ Jul 16th 2006 7:49PM
okay... sorry. didn't do my research before i went and asked a dumba** question like that. how typical of me.
now that i'm done asking stupid questions, here's my response [to post 1]:
oooh! oooh! meeee! i do!!!