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South Korea prepares for WiBro Wave 2
The largest mobile WiMAX deployment in the world readies itself for another subscriber bump by deploying 802.16e-2005 Wave 2 equipment.
First and fastest is not enough for broadband-savvy South Korea. The country's WiBro service, based on 802.16e-2005 mobile WiMAX, is preparing for a boost in performance later this year that is expected to keep the service at the leading edge of mobile broadband. WiBro services first launched in mid-2006 as three operators sought to translate the experience of home and office broadband services to anytime and anywhere (called 4G). The networks are considered the first case study for the mobile WiMAX movement.
Two years after the first commercial services were launched, it's still debated if WiBro is a success or not. Hanaro Telecom, one of the original license holders, surrendered its spectrum allocation leaving Korea Telecom (KT) and SK Telecom as the lone providers. SK Telecom focused initial network coverage in subsets of the metropolitan Seoul market, such as college campuses. This resulted in an uptake of only 2,000 subscribers. KT has had a more ambitious plan of blanketing Seoul in WiBro then expanding along the motorways and mass transit routes. Subscribers for WiBro today have surpassed 200,000 users, which pale in comparison to Korea's mobile phone users or wired broadband customer base. Industry executives point out that WiBro is experiencing a faster rate of adoption in Korea than the cellular W-CDMA protocol did on its two-year anniversary.
Korea's WiBro service is the only market to have WiMAX Forum Certified products based on 802.16e-2005 Wave 1 requirements. Subsequent certification profiles require the more stringent Wave 2 capabilities, including the use of MIMO and beamforming techniques for improved network performance. WiBro operates in the 2.3 GHz frequency band where both KT and SK Telecom have licenses. While most mobile broadband networks utilize 5 or 10 MHz of spectrum at a time, WiBro uniquely allocates 8.75 MHz for its service. Upgrading existing base station infrastructure to Wave 2 requirements means a potential doubling in capacity. Downlink speeds using Wave 1 reach over 18.5 Mbps, while Wave 2 systems have a capacity of nearly 37.5 Mbps. Similarly, uplink speeds double from 5 Mbps to 10 Mbps for a given base station sector.
KT's Wave 2 network is expected to start commercial operation during July while SK Telecom is targeting September. Current WiBro users should continue to receive the same services without interruption, though a next-generation WiBro device would be necessary to obtain improved network performance.
By Jeff Orr,
ORR Technology, LLC
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