News and New Products

Korea's WiMAX snubbed by users

By Melanie Reynolds -- Electronics Weekly, 3/13/2007

WiBro, Korea’s homegrown version of mobile WiMAX, has managed to attract only 1,057 subscribers since it was launched eight months ago, according to reports.

When WiBro was launched it was expected to attract 3.5 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 2006.

However, SK Telecom’s service, launched at a cost of $180 million (93 million pounds), has 151 subscribers and Korea Telecom, which has invested $476 million (246 million pounds), has 906 subscribers.

The third firm to win a WiBro license, Hanaro Telecom, reportedly gave up in April 2005.

WiBro is a wireless broadband communications standard, similar to WiMAX in Europe and the United States, which is being developed by South Korea.

There is 100MHz of spectrum allocated in the 2.3GHz - 2.4GHz band. The system is based on OFDMA and a channel bandwidth of 8.75MHz.

Electronics Weekly is the London-based sister publication of Electronic News, part of the EDN Network.