Unstrung says Samsung has now demonstrated handoff between WiBro basestations at speeds of up to 50 MPH [80 kmph], and intends to debut the new technology at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in November.
Samsung wants to grab an early advantage in mobile wireless broadband, and particularly ensure that it has the jump on Intel, which is arguably the main company driving the WiMax market.
The president of Samsung, Lee Ki-tae, told the Korea Times as much on Monday, saying he didn’t want to see “Intel Inside” the next generation of communications terminals.
“We will lead the standard with WiBro,” Lee says.
The WiBro standard is limited to Korea, however, and its reach beyond that market depends on how far Samsung and LG can run with the technology.
Samsung made video phone calls in a car running 80 kmph. In addition to solving the handover problems, Samsung claims to have demonstrated that WiBro can reach up to 2 Mbps inside a car moving at 120 kilometers per hour.
Lee said the company would release devices for the WiBro service in November. Cards that can be inserted to PCs and notebook computers will be first, followed by WiBro cell phones and PDAs.
WiBro is South Korea’s homegrown technical standard for the 2.3-gigahertz wireless broadband service. Korea is expected to debut WiBro next April.
Korea Telecom (KT), the nation s foremost fixed-line operator, plans to commercialize the locally developed platform. Competitor SK Telecom, the country’s largest mobile operator, plans commercial WiBro service next summer in Seoul with service in 84 major cities across the country by 2009 (see: WiBro Gets Laid).
Lee said up to six telecom carriers like Japan s KDDI and Britain s BT show interest in WiBro and expected the Korea s homegrown offerings will go global soon.
Lee does not appear to be following the Intel playbook. He’s supposed to say WiBro is adopting the IEEE 802.16e standard (not the other way around).
In February 2002, the Korea government allocated 100 MHZ of frequency spectrum in the 2.3GHz bandwidth. WiBro offers an aggregate data throughput of 20 to 30 Mbps with a range of 1 km ~ 5 km. It’s expected to resemble planned Mobile WiMax services by Clearwire and Sprint at 2.5 GHz in the United States. Which reminds us… where is that Mobile WiMax spec?
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