SEOUL - South Korea said
on Friday that it has reached a settlement with the
United States over a locally developed wireless Internet
platform opposed by Qualcomm Inc, pre-empting a possible
trade row.
During two-day negotiations ending on
Thursday in Washington, the South Korean government and
the US Trade Representative agreed that a single,
local-made standard WIPI, or wireless Internet platform
for interoperability, technology will be adopted for all
new mobile phones in South Korea, officials of the
Ministry of Information and Communication said in a
press briefing.
"The two countries have agreed
that all cell phones in South Korea should comply with
the WIPI platform," Kim Maeng-ho, a ministry official,
said.
The move by the South Korean government
was met with harsh opposition from Qualcomm, a US
wireless chip maker that sells another wireless Internet
software called BREW, or binary runtime environment for
wireless.
Kim said Qualcomm may modify its
wireless Internet platform to work with the WIPI
technology.
Qualcomm has said the mandatory use
of a South Korean government-sponsored WIPI platform
could infringe upon fair trade rules. And the US
government had backed Qualcomm's position.
Qualcomm, which has the core patents of code
division multiple access (CDMA) technology, the
second-most widely used mobile phone standard globally,
is hoping with its BREW platform to expand its market
share in South Korea, which has one of the world's
fastest cell phone networks.
Currently, South
Korea's three mobile phone operators have separate
wireless Internet standards, which are required for
mobile phones to download mobile applications such as
ring tones or games.
The South Korean government
said the single standard is necessary to promote the
compatibility of wireless applications among the three
mobile phone networks.
Recently, Qualcomm, which
derives revenues from South Korean handset makers in the
form of CDMA royalties, has faced a hostile campaign
from the domestic firms because of what they perceive as
unfavorable royalty treatment vis-a-vis that given to
Chinese companies.
Qualcomm's South Korean
offices couldn't be reached for comment.
(Asia
Pulse/Yonhap)
Apr 24, 2004
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